This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http : //books . google . com/
THE
HEART *^-
OF A
CONTINENT
YOUNGHUSBAND
'%^-
%
/ /'7' ;'
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
LIBRARY
inTSEUH OF OOMPABATIVE ZOOLOOT.
OOMPAB
o2/
^ii'TV
. li
If
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
/Google
Digitized by '
I
Digitized by
Google
55
Digitized by
Google
THE
HEART OF A CONTINENT:
A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS IN MANCHURIA,
ACROSS THE GOBI DESERT, THROUGH THE HIMALAYAS,
THE PAMIRS, AND CHITRAL,
1884-1894.
BY /
CAPTAIN FRANK E. YOUNGHUSBAND, CLE.,
INDIAN STAFF CORPS,
GOLD MEDALLIST, ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.
* Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life ;
Yearning for the lai^ excitement that the coming years would yield.
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field.
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the lighu he looks at, in among the throngs of men :
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new,
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.*'
Tbnmyson.
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
^^ 1896.
Digitized by
Google
%(rt^
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWBS AND SONS. UMITBDk
STAMFORD STRBBT AND CHARING CROSS.
Digitized by
Google
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER,
THROUGH WHOM, AS THE SISTER OF ROBERT SHAW,
I INHERITED THE SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION ;
AND TO WHOSE KEEN INTEREST IN ALL MY PLANS,
AND THE
SELF-DENYING ENCOURAGEMENT SHE GAVE ME IN THEIR EXECUTION,
I OWE SO MUCH OF WHAT SUCCESS HAS ATTENDED MY WORK,
I DEDICATE
THIS RECORD OF MY TRAVELS.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
PREFACE.
The first thing a man who travels from London to Scotland
wants to do is to describe to his friends at the end of his
journey his experiences on the way — whether the train was
crowded or not, what the weather was like, and how perfect
or imperfect the arrangements of the railway company were.
It is the same general instinct of wishing to tell out to others
the experiences one has had that is now acting in me. To
-do this in conversation is, in my case, a hopeless task — ^because,
for one thing, my experiences of travel have now accumulated
^o heavily ; and, for another, I find insuperable difficulties in
giving by word of mouth accounts of travels in strange lands
unfamiliar to the hearer. At the same time I am always ex-
periencing the wish that my friends should be able to share
with me, as much as it is possible to do so, the enjoyment I
Tiave felt in looking upon Nature in its aspects wild, in distant
unfrequented parts of the earth, and in mixing with strange
and little-known peoples, who, semi-barbarians though they
may be, have often more interesting traits of character than
others in a higher scale of civilization.
I have, therefore, been year by year impelled to write out
my experiences in a collected form, and in such a way as
may be accessible, not only to those with whom I am personally
acquainted, but also, I hope, to many another kindred spirit,
who shares with me that love for adventure and seeking out the
b
Digitized by
Google
vi PREFACE.
unknown which has grown up within me. The great pleasure
in writing is to feel that it is possible, by this means, to reach
such men ; to feel that I can speak to them just as they, by
their books and by their works, have spoken to me, and that
I may, in some slight degree, be passing on to others about
to start on careers of adventure, the same keen love of travel
and of Nature which I have received from those who have
gone before.
There are others, too, whom I hope my book may reach —
some few among those thousands and thousands who stay at
home in England. Amongst these there are numbers who
have that longing to go out and see the world which is the
characteristic of Englishmen. It is not natural to an English-
man to sit at an office desk, or spend his whole existence
amid such tame excitement as life in London, and shooting
partridges and pheasants afford. Many consider themselves
tied down to home ; but they often tie themselves down. And
if a man has indeed the spirit of travel in him, nothing should
be allowed to stand in the way of his doing as he wishes.
And one of the hopes I have as I write this book is, that it
may tempt some few among the stay-at-homes to go out and
breathe a little of the pure fresh air of Nature, and inhale
into their beings some of the revivifying force and heightened
power of enjoyment of all that is on this earth which it can
give.
My book cannot claim to be scientific, nor to be written
in any correct literary style, but I have endeavoured to
speak out, as clearly and impressively as I can, what I saw,
what I did, and what I felt in the little-known, and some-
times unknown, regions which I have visited, and to give the
impressions which formed themselves in my mind of the
various peoples whom I met. Some portion of this will, I hope,
prove of value to others besides the general reader ; but it has
been a ceaseless cause of regret to me that I had never
Digitized by
Google
PREFACE. vii
undergone a scientific training before undertaking my journeys.
During the last year or two I have done what I can by myself
to supply this deficiency ; but amongst the Himalaya mountains^
in the desert of Gobi, and amid the forests of Manchuria, how
much would I not have given to be able to exchange that
smattering of Greek and Latin which I had drilled into me
at school for a little knowledge of the great forces of Nature
which I saw at work around me !
With these few remarks of introduction, and with the hope
that there may be some among my readers to whom the spirit
in which it has been written may appeal ; that there may be
among the busy crowds in England some to whom it may
give an hour's change of scene, and a momentary glimpse
into the great world of Nature beyond our little isle ; and that
there may be some among my countrymen scattered over
the world to whom this description of still other lands than
those they have so far seen may give pleasure, I send out
this story of a wanderer's doings, of the scenes which he
has witnessed, and of the feelings which have moved him.
" Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ;
Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home ;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam ;
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam.
Were unto him companionship ; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tome
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake.
** Perils he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet :
The scene was savage, but the scene was new ;
This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet.
Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcom'd summer's heat,"
Byron.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
NOTICE.
The appearance of this volume has been delayed by a
variety of unforeseen causes. Before the manuscript was
completed, the author was suddenly called upon to go to
Chitral, during the campaign which was being carried out in
that country in 1895. Again, last December, when but a few
pages were in print, he was unexpectedly summoned to a
distant part of the world at a few hours' notice.
Before leaving, he requested me to see the work through
the press. This task has been an unusually interesting and
agreeable one, but has been attended by some little difficulty,
for some of the places named are not to be found on any
existing maps, while, inasmuch as many of the incidents
described are known to the author alone, the process of
verification, when any uncertainty arose, was in some instances
impossible.
In these circumstances, I must ask the reader not to hold
the author responsible for any inaccuracies which may be found
in these pages.
Captain Younghusband's achievements as a traveller and
explorer, which won for him a very distinguished place among
the Gold Medallists of the Royal Geographical Society, are
too well known to call for many words of introduction to this
record of his principal expeditions.
In 1886 he visited Manchuria, and penetrated to the summit
of Chang-pai-shan, the " Ever- White Mountain," in company
with Mr. James of the Indian Civil Service.
Returning thence to Peking, he started, in 1887, on his
adventurous journey through the heart of Asia, across the
Digitized by
Google
NOTICE.
Gobi Desert and Chinese Turkestan to Kashgar and Yarkand,
and from that point crossed the Himalayas by the Mustagh
Pass to Srinagar.
In 1889 he was sient to investigate the circumstances of
the Kanjuti or Hunza raids on the Kirghiz territory, in the
course of which he descended the valley of the Yarkand
River, explored the Saltoro and Shimshal Passes, and, after
reaching the Taghdumbash Pamir, visited Safder Ali, the chief
of the Hunzas, at his head-quarters at Hunza.
In 1890 Captain Younghusband made his famous ex-
pedition to the Pamirs, at the close of which he was
peremptorily ordered off territory claimed by Russia. The
officer conveying this message was Colonel Yonoff, with whom
Captain Younghusband, but a few hours before, had been
encamping on the most friendly terms. For this act the
Russian Government subsequently apologized.
In 1892, after the brilliant little campaign in which Safder
Ali was subdued, he was sent to Hunza, where a British repre-
sentative was established ; but early in the following year was
suddenly summoned to Chitral, on the outbreak of disturbances
consequent upon the death of the ruler, Aman-ul-Mulk. When
peace was restored, and the succession of the Mehtar, Nizam-
ul-Mulk, was secured. Captain Younghusband was for some
months stationed at the capital as British representative, and
during this time he became thoroughly acquainted with a
country which was destined, soon afterwards, to attract much
interest in England. In this work will be found a full account
of Chitral and her people, and of the unfortunate ruler whose
death was the immediate cause of the expedition of 1895.
The account of that expedition, already published by Captain
Younghusband, forms an episode in the record of his experi-
ences, of which this volume gives the first connected narrative.
JOHN MURRAY.
Digitized by
Google
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE EVER-WHITE MOUNTAIN.
PAGE
My first journey to Dharmsala — Robert Shaw — Preparations for an extended
journey — Mr. H. E. M. James — Decision to go to Manchuria — Arrival at
Newchwang — **The Ever-White Mountain" — ^To Mukden — Chinese in-
qnisitiveness — Tomb of Nurhaden— To the Yalu River — Want of milk and .
butter — Industry of Chinese colonists — ^We enter the great forest — Mosquitoes
— Sable hunters — The Sungari River — Its sources — I reach the summit of
the *• Ever- White Mountain " — Kirin — Chinese dinners — Chinese manners i
CHAPTER II.
MANCHURIA TO PEKING.
Start for Tsi-tsi-har— The Sungari again— Luxury of milk and cream — The
Mongolian and Chinese frontier — Return to cultivation — Hulan — Torturing
of P^re Conraux — Pei-lin-tzu — A pattern mission station— Sansing — A
Chinese fort and guns — Ninguta— Chinese carts and carters— The Russian
frontier — Hunchun— Transport of Krupp guns— General I — ^A Russian
frontier post — Cossacks — Colonel Sokolowski — Russian hospitality —
Novo-kievsk — The Corean frontier — England and Russia ... ... 22
CHAPTER III.
BACK TO PEKING.
We turn our faces homewards — Kirin — Hsiao Pa-chia-tzu — The Roman
Catholic mission — To Mukden — 14® below zero — Winter traffic — Mongolian
ponies — ^A frozen mist — ^The Scottish mission at Mukden — Its medical
work — Return to Newchwang — My indebtedness to Mr. James — Remarks
on Manchuria— Its products and people — Christmas Day in a Chinese inn
— Shan-hai-kuan — The Great Wall of China — Compared with the
Pyramids — Kaiping — A procession of corpses — British navvies — The
Kaiping coal-mine — Mr. Kinder — How he constructed his locomotives —
The first Chinese railway — Native superstitions and prejudices — Feng-shui
—Tientsin — Ice-boat sailing — New Year's visits— Peking ... ... 4^
Digitized by
Google
xii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PEKING TO KWEI-HWA-CHENC.
PAGE
Arrival of Colonel Bell — Preparations for an overland journey to India — Our
different routes — Fascination of planning a journey — Start from Peking —
My servant— Liu-san — The Great Wall at Kalgan — American medical
mission — Views on opium-smoking — M. Ivanoff— A Chinese ex-naval officer
— Chinese ignorance of geography — Agreements with carters — In the
valley of the Yang-ho — ^The winds from the Mongolian plateau— Formation
of cart-roads in the loess— Mules — We enter the "Land of Gog and
Magog" — On the Mongolian plain — ^Yurts — Kindliness of the Mongols —
Partridges— Chinese supplanting Mongols — Rapid changes of temperature
— Arrival at Kwei-hwa-cheng — The China inland mission — ^Their system and
hardships — How Chinese troops are levied— Mr. Clarke — Kwei-hwa-cheng
— Its diminishing trade — Its temples — Mongol bazaar — Caravan-men — Pre-
parations for crossing the Gobi Desert— Finding an auspicious date— My
equipment ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 5^
CHAPTER V.
ACROSS THE GOBI DESERT.
My company — The guide — His extraordinary memory for wells — Ma-te-la — We
start — The In-shan Mountains — Mongolian pastures— Encroachments of
Chinese and Russians— Messrs. Collins & Co. of Tientsin — ^The Mongolian
camel — Warnings of robbers — Liu-san and his revolver — Deer and the
mode of killing them— Mongol temples — Aggressive ravens — Approaching
the Sheitung-ula Mountains — A local tradition — ^The Ho-lai-liu stream —
Deceptive distances — The heart of the Gobi Desert — Monotonous marches —
Characteristics of the desert — Temperature and winds — Extracts from diary
— Wild ponies — Elm trees — The Galpin Gobi — Hurricane and darkness —
Partridges — The Hurku Hills — Bortson well— On Prjevalsky's track —
A trading caravan — Uses of a Mongol boot — Valuable gifts — Mongol
customs — A dust-storm — Curious sandhills — ^Their origin — Wind-formed
sand — Mr. Barosakhai — ^The mountain system — Preparing for attack — A
glass of sherry — Man-chin-tol — A "general hit out" — Slow progress —
Glimpses of snow — Wild camels — Wild mules — The Altai Mountains —
Refractory camels — Ma-te-la bolts home — A strange sunset — Mongol agri-
culture — Ula-Khutun — Origin of sloping gravel plains — Ovis argali — A
glimpse of the Tian-shan — Desert of Zungaria — Ovis po/ihoins — Difficulties
of Chinese language — A period of depression — A scorching wind — We
enter Turkestan — Its inhabitants — Turki women — We cross the Tian-shan
Mountains — An oasis — Last stage of desert journey — Arrival at Hami ... 7S
CHAPTER VL
THROUGH TURKESTAN TO YARKAND.
Inquiries for Colonel Bell— Bazaar at Hami — A Russian merchant — I hire carts
— A satisfactory arrangement — Start from Hami — A poor inn — Eurh-pu —
The desert again — Tombs of mandarins — A dreary land — A cart as a
bedroom — Chinese soldiers and their ways— ** The great English nation"
Digitized by
Google
CONTENTS.
PAGB
— ^We lose our way— Shi-ga-tai— Bad inns of Kashgaria — Pi-chan — A plea-
sant oasis — Cnrious holes — A Turki inn — Wells of Chinese soldiers — Arrival
at Turfan — An Afghan merchant — A cross-examination— The Andijanis —
The shops and wares — A Hajji — His experiences and his influence —
Kokhandees — Living in holes — Description of Turfan— Toksun — A hard
day's work — Kumesha— Karashar — Tunganis— Kalmak encampments —
The Turks — Purchasing a pony^ — A rescued Mongol lady — Fords, ferries,
and swamps— Hospitable Turks — ^Mosquitoes again — ^The worst carter in
Asia — The art of cart-driving — Korlia — A reorganization — Doolans — Kuch6
— Soldier thieves — A regular horse-dealer — Traces of Yakoob Beg — Kizil —
Cultivated land — Aksu — ^Travelling merchants — Rahmat-ula-Khan — Ush
Turfan — Memories of Robert Shaw — A Kirghiz encampment — Curious
companions — ^Darning my stockings — Balls of curds — The Kara-kara Pass
— The Syrt country — A captive eagle — Riding down eagles — Hostile
Kirghiz — Rahmat-ula-Khan*s diplomacy — His opinions on Russians and
English — First sight of the Pamir Mountains — Artysh — Arrival at Kashgar
—The Afghan aksakal— " Ropert "— MM. Petrovsky and Hendriks—
Arrival and welcome at Yarkand ... ... ... ... ... 123:
CHAPTER VII.
INTO THE HEART OF THE HIMALAYAS.
Chinese Turkestan — Chiefly desert — Oases — A land of extremes — A people of
imperturbable mediocrity — A suggestion from Colonel Bell — Preparations
for the Mustagh Pass — Dalgleish*s house — His characteristics— Robert
Shaw — His career and fate — Chinese officials— Courtesy of the Amban—
A sumptuous feast — My guide Wali— Start from Yarkand — Market days —
Kugiar — Tupa Dawan Pass — The Pakhpu — Chiraghsaldi Pass — ^Danger
of Kanjuti robbers — The Yarkand River — Karash-tarim — Raskam district
— Disused smelting furnaces — Khoja Mohammed gorge — Surakwat stream
— A bad day's march — Foretaste of severe cold — Elation of difficulty — ^The
Aghil Pass — "The other side of the hill" — A stupendous scene — A pre-
carious descent — The Oprang River — ^The Karakoram — Suget Jangal — K.2 1 70-
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MUSTAGH PASS.
A discouraging start — A precipice blocks the way — My Ladaki servant refuses
descent of the precipice — Mountains of solid ice — My first glacier — Ice-
caves — Scarcity of supplies — Difficulties of the ponies — A possible way out
— My last pair of boots — In a sea of ice — The two Mustagh passes — A
choice of evils — A critical stage— Intense cold at night — On the summit of
the pass — Advantages of silence — A perilous ice-slope — Drogpa gives in —
A sheer precipice to pass — Courage of my men — ^The last to descend — In
safety once more — A glorious night scene — Crevasses — My last bottle of
brandy broken — Baltoro Glacier — Suffiering from want of boots — A ducking
— "We reach Askoli — Inhospitable reception — Start for the New Mustagh
Pass — Superstitious dread of the mountains — Cornered between two glaciers
— The Punmah Glacier — A rope bridge — Wall's fear — The Braldo River —
The Shigar valley— Baltistan— The Baltis — A subject race— I take leave
Digitized by
Google
CONTENTS,
PACK
of Wali— M. Dauvergne— M. Notovitch— The Zoji-la Pass— The Sind and
Kashmir valleys — Arrival at Srinagar — I try to civilize myself— Meeting
with Captain Ramsay — Congratulations of Sir F. Roberts — To Murree
and Rawal Pindi-> Arrival of Liu-san and the ponies ... ... ... i88
CHAPTER IX.
THE KANJUTI RAIDS.
Return of the exploring fever — Disappointment — Sudden order to go to Hunza
— Hunza or Kanjut— A race'of raiders — Sir Mortimer Durand — Abbottabad
— I inspect my Gurkhas— Murree — Gurkhas are not horsemen — The Sind
valley — Cheeriness of the Gurkhas — Zoji-la — We enter Ladak — Buddhist
monasteries — Arrival at Leh — An old friend — Shukar AH — Captain
Ramsay — Kashmir sepoys — Baltis — A goatskin raft — Difficulties of trans-
port — Coolies — Ponies — Donkeys — Camels decided on — Supplies — Start
again — Khardung Pass — Mountain sickness— Nubra valley — Saser Pass—
Depsang Plains — Karakoram Pass — Absence of snow — Dalgleish*s murder
— Suget Pass — Shahidula— A deputation of Kirghiz— Account of a Kanjuti
raid — Characteristics of the Kirghiz ... ... ... ... ... 214
CHAPTER X.
AMONG THE GLACIERS.
Waiting for the subsidence of the river — Bound for an unknown region — ^The
Shimshal and Saltoro passes— Supplies arrive— Preparations for exploration
—Start for Shahidula— Khal Chuskun— Sokh-bulak Pass— Kirghiz Jangal
— Kulanuldi— In the valley of the Yarkand River— A swollen ford— Ruins
at Karash-tarim— Minerals — Bazar Darra stream— Information about the
Kuen-lun Mountains and their drainage — A climb to reconnoitre — ^Karul
on the Surakwat— Tradition of Khoja Mohammed— The Aghil Pass— On
new ground— In search of the Saltoro Pass— The Oprang valley — A wall
of ice — ^View of Gusherbrum — Among the glaciers — Peculiar snow-clouds
— ^Baffled — We reach the Saltoro Pass — A heavy snowstorm — An avalanche
— A narrow escape — Forced to return to camp— The Sarpo Laggo valley—
I lose the caravan — Magnesium-wire signals — Suget Jangal— In search of
the Shimshal Pass — Mode of ascending glaciers — ^Very bad crevasses — ^A
cut de sac — Comfortless quarters — Return to camp — Beautiful ice-forms —
Glacier scenery — Crevasse Glacier— Return to Suget Jangal ... ... 230
CHAPTER XI.
A KANJUTI STRONGHOLD.
Death of my pony— The Oprang River- Want of maps— We lose our bearings
— Constant fordings — The pluck of the Gurkhas— Chang Jangal— A post at
last — News from Hunza— Arrival of Turdi Kol at last — ^To Darwaza— A
robbers* stronghold— The Gurkha naik claims his privilege — Plan of
approach — A precarious position — ^A curious group — A peaceful ending —
We advance — Hardships of the Hunza men — We cross the Shimshal Pass
—A "pamir"— A letter from Safder AH— We return to the Yarkand
River ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 254
Digitized by
Google
CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER XII.
BY THB SKIRTS OF THE PAMIRS TO HUNZA.
PAGE
The Raskam River— Letters from Lieutenant Bower and Major Cumberland —
I dispose of my ponies— Captain Grombtchevsky— His equipment— The
Cossacks — ^Russian soldiers and their work — Inspection of my Gurkhas —
Gurkhas and Cossacks — A pleasant incident — Kurba Pass — Taghdumbash
Pamir— Ilisu—Kuch Mohammed Bey — I go to Tashkurgan — Major Cum-
berland and Lieutenant Bower — ^The Sarikolis — ^Fugitives from Shignan —
The Taghdumbash Pamir — ^To the Khunjerab Pass — Ovis poH — Curious
shining particles — ^A stalk— To the Mintaka Pass — Chinese official — Offended
dignity — Dismissing my Kirghiz — Their greediness — We cross the Mintaka
— Across the Indus watershed — An interesting valley — Misgah — A Hunza
Arbap — His greed — Gircha — Visit from the Prime Minister, Wazir Dadu —
Gulmit — A state reception — Safder Ali — I take a seat — A business interview
— Safder Ali and Alexander the Great — The right to raid — A heated dis-
cussion—Firing exercises— An undignified ruler — I leave Gulmit — The fate
of Safder Ali — Gilgit — Return to Kashmir— I take leave of my Gurkhas ... 266
CHAPTER XIII.
TO THE PAMIRS — 189O.
Previous travellers in the Pamirs — My companion, Mr. George Macartney — ^Leh
— Messrs. Beech and Lennard — We reach Yarkand — Unchanging character
of Central Asian cities — Arrival of Captain Grombtchevsky — A curious
dinner-party — We start for the Roof of the World — Tashkurgan — ^The
Neza-tash Pass — ^The Little Pamir — Characteristics of a Pamir — Vegetation
— Severity of the cold — ^The Kirghiz — Aktash — Across the Little Pamir —
The Istigh River — ^Alichur Pamir — Ak-chak-tash — Hot springs — Ovis poli
— Somatash — The inscribed stone at Bash Gumbaz — Scene of the conflict
between the Russians and Afghans in 1892 — Routes to the Alichur Pamir
— ^The valley oF the Aksu — Sarez — Murghabi — Russian outposts — The Ak-
baital — Rang-kul — The mysterious Lamp Rock — The mystery explained —
To the Kara-kul Lake— Kizil Jek Pass— Kara-art Pass— Down the
Markan-su to Opal— Arrival in Kashgar — Winter quarters— Chinese gongs
— M. Petrovsky ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 29>
CHAPTER XIV.
A WINTER IN KASHGAR.
Official visits — The Chinese Taotai and general — A Chinese opinion of European
civilization — General Wang — The barracks — Discipline and occupations of
the soldiers — Rifle practice — Cosmopolitan Kashgar— Central Asian traders
—Opinions of the Afghan Amir of British and Russian rule — Impressions
of Russian power — Effects of our retirement from Afghanistan in 1881 —
M. Petrovsky— His views about England— About treatment of natives in
India— About the Crimea— Russian carelessness about learning languages
— M. Blanc— Dr. Sveyn Hedin— M. Dutreuil de Rhins— Subsequently
Digitized by
Google
xvi CONTENTS.
murdered in Tibet— P^re Hendriks — His accomplishments and privations
— Arrival of Messrs. Beech and Lennard — A Christmas dinner— Mono-
tony of life — Arrival of a post — Bad news and good — I am made a CLE,
— Permission to retnm to India— Arrival of Lieutenant Davison— His
adventures — We start together— A misunderstanding ... ... ... 3^^
CHAPTER XV.
KASHGAR TO INDIA.
I take leave of Macartney — Departure from Chinese Turkestan— Its murky
atmosphere— Pilgrimages to Mecca— The Gez defile— A temporary lake
— Bulun-kul— I part from Lieutenant Davison— Little Kara-kul — A re-
markable lake — A grand view — Tagarma plain — Tashkurgan again —
Reports of Russian force on the Pamirs— Wakhijrui Pass — Bozai-Gumbaz
— ^A party of Cossacks — Colonel Yonoff arrives — His mission — Tent of
Russian officers — Compared with my own — A dinner-party — Surveying
work done by the Russians — The Khora Bhort Pass — Exchange of informa-
tion — Departure of the Russians — Colonel Yonoff returns to order me away
— I consent under protest — Subsequent apology of Russian Government —
I go to the Kukturuk valley — Lieutenant Stewart arrives with escort —
Return of Lieutenant Davison — His treatment by the Russians — Among
the mountains again — ^The watershed of the Indus and Oxus — ^The heart of
Central Asia — ^The Panja River — Back to Bozai-Gumbaz — How to return
to India ? — We find a pass— A snowstorm — A glacier — Instinct of the yak
— An icy blast — Rough descent — The Karumbar River — Gilgit — Heavy
snow on the Burzil Pass — A detachment of Gurkhas snowed up — Frost-
bite — The Tragbal Pass — ^The valley of Kashmir — End of another journey
— Death of Davison ... ... ... ... ... ... 32a
CHAPTER XVI.
CHITRAL AND HUNZA.
State of Hunza — Expedition against Safder Ali in 1892 — I am sent to relieve
Captain Stewart — British power in Border States — The policy of " punish
and retire ** not the best — Pacification of Hunza — British suzerainty— The
true mode of dealing with petty chiefs — Loyalty of Hunza — Mohammed
Nazim, successor of Safder Ali — My return to the country — Rakapushi
Peak — Nilt, the scene of the gallant affair in 1892— Baltit — Meeting with
Mohammed Nazim — Characteristics of the people — Winter preparations-
Turning swords into ploughshares — News of trouble in Chitral — Death of
the Mehtar — I am summoned by Colonel Durand — Account of Chitral —
Aman-ul-Mulk and his sons— Rival claimants — Sher Afzul's successful
attack — Nizam-ul-Mulk defeats him — Application for British aid— Our
advance from Gilgit — Shandur Pass — Ghiza — Frost-bites — Mastuj — De-
scription of Nizam-ul-Mulk — A popinjay — The Chitralis — Life in Chitral —
— The coming of spring — Excursions — Lessons in mountaineering— A
mountain view — Characteristics of the country ... ... ... 341
Digitized by
Google
CONTENTS, xvii
CHAPTER XVII.
CHITRAL AND HER RULERS.
PAGB
Departure of Mr. Robertson and Lieutenant Bruce — ^The Mehtar and his
associates — Illiterate but intelligent — Ideas and interests of the Chitralis —
Travellers' tales— The Mehtar's visit to India and its eflfects — His system
of government — Daily durbars — Summary justice — Meals — Conversational
trials — ^The Mehtar's wonderful knowledge of his subjects— The Adamzadas
— Federation of chiefs — Ignorant opposition to British rule — General
Council of State — Absence of all secrecy — Progressive and reactionary
parties— Governors of provinces — Rapid mode of administration— Compared
with cumbrous methods of British Government — Living among the people —
The Mehtar*s love of sport — Desire to visit England — Reception in villages —
Opinion of British officers — Impulsiveness of Chitralis — Ignorance of value
of money — Hatred of work — I am removed to Mastuj, and leave Chitral —
The death of Nizam-ul-Mulk ... ... ... ... ... 357
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MISSIONARY QUESTION IN CHINA.
Interest in the question of missions in China — Admirable work done by
missionaries— Not all of equal merit — True and false missionaries — Statistics
of converts no true test^-Conversion — Growing and expanding work of
Christianity — The Armenian atrocities and Asiatics — Spirit of Christianity
and Asiatics — Fanatic missionaries — ^Elements of good in heathen religions
— Universality of religion — Belief in a Great Spirit — Influence of personal
character — Progress must be slow ... ... ... ... ... 377
CHAPTER XIX.
IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL.
Impressions and reflections produced by travel — Nature's most important
messages — Life in the Gobi Desert — Manifestations of Nature— Men's ideas
influenced by their surroundings — Hunza — Conjectures of ether worlds —
The stored knowledge of civilization — Impressions produced by mountains
— Their comparative sizes — The forests of Manchuria — The crowded haunts
of men — ^Asiatic races — ^The goal of man's progress — ^Intellectual power of
difierent races— Moral superiority — Dealings of Englishmen with natives —
The power of sympathy— Tenacity of purpose— Lieutenant Fowler at
Reshnn — Development of man as a social being — Conclusion ... ... 387
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TO PACE PAGE
Frontispiece »
' K Night March in the Gobi Desert
/Courtyard of a Chinese Inn
'Manchurian House
Our Party in Manchuria
"^ Sandhills in the Gobi Desert
vFarm in the Tian Shan MoUxNtains ...
^ K Bazaar in Chinese Turkestan ...
vRobert Shaw and His Attendants, before leaving for Kashoar,
1874
v'An Oasis in Chinese Turkestan
yiN THE Himalayas...
^ Camp on the Glacier, Mustagh Pass ...
^Crossing an Ice-slope on the Mustagh Pass
A Rope Bridge
vThe Sind Valley, Kashmir
V Kashgar
vValley in the Hindu Kush
V Nizam-ul-Mulk, Mehtar of Chitral ...
V Night Scene in the Gobi Desert ...
8
3^
48
98
120
124
156
170
180
192
196
206
218
312
354
358
388
MAPS.
V Map of Manchuria ... ... ... ... ... ... 56
/Map to illustrate Journey from Peking to Yarkand ... ... 168
v^f AP of Asia, showing Captain Younghusband's Various Journeys at end
Map of the Northern Frontier of India, prepared by Messrs.
Constable AND Doubled AY ... ... ... in pocket at end
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT.
CHAPTER I.
THE EVER-WHITE MOUNTAIN.
What it was that first started me off on wanderings, which
during the last ten years have led me over so large a
portion of Asia, it is difficult to say exactly. But I think
the first seeds of the divine discontent at staying still were
sown in the summer of 1884, when I had obtained a few
months' leave from my r^ment, the King's Dragoon Guards,
then stationed at Rawal Pindi, in the Punjab, and made use
of them to tour through some of the lower ranges of the
Himalayas.
My instinct first led me to Dharmsala, for many years the
home of my uncle Robert Shaw, who with Hayward was the
first Englishman to push his way right through the Himalayas
to the plains of Turkestan beyond. Here I found many of
his old pensioners — men who had accompanied him on his
several journeys to Yarkand and Kashgar — and books too,
and maps, and old manuscripts. I was among the relics of
an explorer, at the very house in which he had planned his
explorations, and from which he had started to accomplish
them. I pored over the books and maps, and talked for hours
with the old servants, till the spirit of exploration gradually
entered my soul, and I rushed off on a preliminary tour on
foot in the direction of Tibet, and planned a great journey
into that country for the following year.
B
Digitized by
Google
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. i.
That first wild wandering through the Himalayas is one
on which I look back with almost keener enjoyment than
on any other journey I have subsequently made. I had been
in Switzerland and seen snow-mountains before, but only as
a boy, when I was not able to wander as I would. Now I
was free, and in all the pride and keenness of twenty-one.
One march a day was not enough for me ; I made two
regularly, and sometimes three, and I wanted to go everywhere
in the two months which was all I then had available. The
scenery of such valleys as those of Kangra and Kulu was
enchanting, and then came the excitement of preparing to
cross my first snow-pass. I had pictured to myself every
imaginable horror from descriptions in books (written, of course
as I afterwards understood, from experiences at exceptional
seasons), and I can still recall my disappointment at finding
that all these horrors had degenerated into simple heart-
breaking plodding through soft deep snow hour after hour, with
an icy wind blowing, and the sun striking down on the top
of my head and combining with the rarefaction of the air
to give me as bad a headache as I ever had. Then, too, the
feeling of disgust and despair at the sight of those utterly
bare brown mountains which lie beyond the first forest-clad
zone of the Himalayas, their cold and almost repellent
appearance, — all this I remember well, and the rawness and
inexperience of the whole of my arrangements, and the
discovery that I could not march for twenty or thirty miles
a day, as I had imagined I should be able to do, with just
about enough food for the whole day as would form a decent
breakfast for a man in hard work. And yet there was a
delicious sense of satisfaction as each long day's march was
over, as each pass was crossed, each new valley entered, and
the magnificent health and strength which came therewith
inspired the feeling of being able to go anywhere and do
anything that it was within the powers of man to do.
Digitized by
Google
1885.] PREPARATIONS FOR MY FIRST JOURNEY, 3
From this first tour through the Himalayas I came back
with the exploring fever thoroughly on me, and I plunged
incessantly into books of travel. Very fortunately, too, just
a few months later on, in the cold weather of the same year,
I found some small scope for my superabundant energies in
a three months* reconnaissance which I was sent to make
upon the Indus and towards the Afghan frontier; and then,
after being attached for some weeks to the Quarter-Master
General's department under the present Sir William Lockhart,
for the durbar in honour of the Amir of Afghanistan, I was
sent to Simla as an attachi in the Intelligence Department,
and ordered to revise the " Gazetteer " of the Kashmir frontier.
Here was most congenial work, for it dealt with all the
approaches to that mysterious land of Yarkand and Kashgar
which had so fascinated me at Dharmsala, and of which I
had so often heard in connection with my uncle, the explorer.
The fine library of books of travel in every part of Asia
which was now at my disposal was yet another incentive to
exploration, and many were the schemes which I revolved
in my mind that summer of 1885 at Simla,
But the immediate cause of my first big journey was
Mr. James.* It was by the greatest piece of good fortune
that we came together. We met first at a dinner-party, and
the conversation between us turned on Yarkand and Kashgar.
(I would beg my readers thoroughly to impress upon their
minds the position of these places, for their names will
frequently be mentioned throughout this book.) I naturally
waxed eloquent on the subject, and a week or two afterwards
we again met at dinner, and again talked about the same
places. And then, after a few days, on one Sunday afternoon
Mr. James walked into my house and asked me if I would
go a journey with him. Nothing was said as to where we
* Mr. H. E. M. James, of the Indian Civil Service, then Director- General of the
Post-Office in India, now Commissioner in Sind.
Digitized by
Google
4 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. i.
should go ; but to go a journey anywhere was enough for
me, and of course I said " Yes " I remember sitting that after-
noon in church at Simla and looking up the rows of people,
thinking how every man amongst them would wish to be in
my place, if he only knew what I was going to do ; for at
that time I thought that everybody must necessarily want to
make a journey if he could only get the chance, and that
to do so must be the very highest ambition of a man.
Mr. James, it appeared, had originally intended to travel
with Mr. Carey, the well-known explorer of Tibet, who was just
then starting on his travels. But there had been difficulty about
Mr. James's leave, and so he had had to postpone his journey
till the following spring, and, being without a companion, had
asked me to join him wherever he might go. This act of
kindness is one for which I shall ever be grateful, and I shall
always feel that it was to Mr. James that I owe the first
start on my career of travel.
Both of us had an inclination towards China, and we at
once decided in a general way that to China we should go.
It so happened that in my leisure hours I had read up a
number of books about Manchuria, Mongolia, and North China,
and compiled itineraries from them. I was therefore able
to give my chief. Sir Charles Macgregor, then Quarter- Master-
General in India, some little proof that I was serious in the
matter, and he promised to help me and do what he could
to smooth over difficulties about my leave. Then followed
a month or two with my regiment, during which we marched
some three hundred miles to a camp of exercise, and took
part in manoeuvres such as we have in India only, and in
which two armies of twenty thousand men each were started
off from bases over one hundred miles apart, and told to find
and fight each other how and when and where they could ;
and at the close of these manoeuvres in the spring of 1886 I
obtained my leave, and was able • o join Mr. James at Calcutta.
Digitized by
Google
i886.] MANCHURIA.
Our plans had now shaped themselves into a journey round
Manchuria. It was a country of many interests, and it was
but little known. It was the cradle of the present ruling
dynasty of China ; and the few travellers who had been there
had described its lovely scenery, its noble rivers, its fertility
and natural resources, and the healthiness of its climate.
Reading all this in the heat of India, we were fascinated by
it ; and as its proximity to Russian territory on the one
hand and Japan on the other gave it military and political
interests also, we felt that time spent in such a country would
not be wasted.
On March 19, 1886, we left Calcutta, and in due course found
ourselves at Newchwang, the treaty port of Manchuria. This
was to be the base of operations, and we were fortunate enough
to be joined here by Mr. H. Fulford, of the Chinese Consular
Service, an officer who spoke Chinese thoroughly well, knew
all the customs of the country, and was able to give us that
assistance which as strangers in the land we so much needed.
It is not, however, my intention to give a full detailed account
of our journey in Manchuria, for that has already been done
by Mr. James, in his book, ''The Long White Mountain," in
which will be found not only a description of our travels,
but a fund of information about the history, the religion, and
the customs of the people. I shall merely supplement his
work with a few of the impressions which were left upon
myself.
Our first objective point was a mountain well known in
Chinese legends — the Chang-pai-shan, or "Ever- White Moun-
tain." This fabulous mountain had, it is true, been visited
in 1709 by one of those enterprising Jesuit surveyors, who
seem to have pushed their way everywhere, and compiled
a wonderfully accurate map of the Chinese empire. But no
European had subsequently visited the mountain to corroborate
their accounts, and much romantic mystery still attached itself
Digitized by
Google
6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap, u
to it. By the Manchus especially the mountain was held in
the deepest reverence, and I quote from Mr. James's book a
translation of a poem by the Emperor Kieulung regarding it —
"To ascend to the primitive source of our August Race,
which has founded our Tai-tsing (Great-dear dynasty), we
must carry ourselves to that mountain, distinguished in like
fashion (with the dynasty) for the size and for the colour with
which it shines. The famous lake Tamoun occupies part of
its summit ; the rivers Yalu, Hun tung, and Ai hu' arise from
its bosom, carrying fertility over the fields which they water ;
and the fragrant mists which for ever rise in this charming
spot are, without contradiction, those of true glory and solid
happiness. On this blessed mountain, a celestial virgin, a
daughter of heaven, tasted a fruit to which she was attracted
by the brightness of its colour above all others, ate, conceived,,
and became the mother of a boy, heavenly like herself. Heaven
itself gave him the name of Kioro, to which it added, by way
of distinction, that of the precious metal, and ordained that
he should be called Aisin Kioro, or Golden Kioro."
The Ever-White Mountain was reported to be situated in
the heart of an immense forest, to be of enormous height
(the name itself suggesting a snow-clad peak), and to have
an unfathomable lake at its summit We were accordingly
fired with enthusiasm to penetrate its mystery and ascend its
summit, and on May 19 we left the treaty port of Newchwang
with this object in view.
We now had our first taste of Chinese travel, and it proved
on the whole by no means unpleasant. In the first place,
the climate was perfect — mild and soft, like an English summer.
The country was everywhere richly cultivated, and was dotted
over with well-built, pent-roofed farmhouses, not at all unlike
those which one sees in England. We travelled in carts— the
small carts so often described in books on China — with two
mules each, driven tandem, the baggage piled up inside and
Digitized by
Google
'8^0 MUKDEN,
behind, and ourselves seated at the base of the shafts along-
side the drivers, with our legs dangling over the side. In the
summer months, when the roads are soft and muddy, the pace
is not rapid, and the traveller can jump off, walk alongside,
and jump on again as he likes. But in the winter, when the
roads are frozen and worn down by the heavy traffic almost
as smooth as an asphalte roadway, these carts trundle along
at a good five or six miles an hour, and with a thousand
or twelve hundred pounds of goods will do their thirty miles
a day without any difficulty.
Everywhere along the road are found inns where accommo-
dation for man and beast can be obtained. The first plunge from
European civilization — ^which in our case was represented by the
house of Mr. Allen, the British Consul at Newchwang — into a
Chinese inn is not agreeable ; but when once one has settled
down to the inevitable roughness of travel, one finds many
advantages in it. As a rule a private room can be obtained,
all the necessaries of life are procurable, and fodder for the
animals is always ready. These inns are generally well-built
houses, and are a real boon to the native travellers and
merchants. There is usually one long room, with a low
platform on either side and a passage down the middle. On
these platforms, or kangs^ which can be warmed underneath,
the guests recline or squat at the low tables which are placed
on them, eating their meals and chatting volubly. At night
the travellers sleep in long rows cheek by jowl along the
platforms. The great drawback to these inns is their dirt,
inside and around, and we often longed for the cleanliness
of those Japanese inns which Fulford used to describe to us.
At 1 20 miles from Newchwang we reached Mukden, the
capital of Manchuria, and at one time the seat of govern-
ment for the present reigning dynasty of China. Our recep-
tion there was not a pleasant one, and as we rode through
the streets in search of an inn, we were followed even into
Digitized by
Google
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. i.
the house by a hooting, yelling crowd. A Chinaman has no
regard for privacy, and these men showed considerable
annoyance because we would not let them into our private
room, and allow them to stare at us, examine everything we
possessed, feel our clothes to see what sort of cloth they
were made of, and question us unendingly about our ages,
where we had come from, how long we meant to stay, and
where we were going. Even when we had cleared our room,
they did not desist from pestering us, but, while we were
undressing, poked holes with their fingers in the paper
windows of our room, and then applied their eyes to these
easily made peep-holes. Looking up in the middle of our
ablutions, we would see a mass of eyes — just the eyes, with
nothing else visible — peering at us. The effect was peculiarly
irritating, and we would dash out with furious remonstrance ;
but as soon as we were inside again they would come back
exactly as before, and we had eventually to resign ourselves
to the inevitable.
But these are the ordinary experiences of every traveller
in China, and I am only repeating what has been described
a hundred times before. We were kept a week at Mukden,
making up a caravan of mules to take us into the mountains.
We accordingly had time to see the sights of the place, and
go some excursions in the neighbourhood. Of these the
most interesting was to the tomb of Nurhachu, the founder
of the present dynasty. These Manchus have high ideas
as to the fitting resting-places for their great men, and there
are few more impressive tombs than this of the simple
mountain chief who raised his clan from perfect obscurity to
be the rulers of the most populous empire the world has
ever seen. Situated in the country, away from the din of
city life, in the midst of a park of sombre cypresses and pines
many miles in extent, and surrounded by a wall, at the
massive gateway of which guards are placed to prevent any
Digitized by
Google
55
o
Q
<
>
C-i
O
u
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i886.] • TOWARDS THE YALU RIVER. 9
but Manchus of pure descent from entering, it impresses
the imagination with a sense of dignified repose, in truest
keeping with its object
In Mukden, too, and its neighbourhood there are many
temples, but of the ordinary Chinese type, and of no special
interest In the matter of temples, indeed, the Chinese are
singularly unsuccessful in inspiring interest I did not see a
single temple in China that really impressed me — not one to
compare with those which may be seen all over India. With
but very few exceptions, they are tawdry and even flimsy,
and one never seems to meet with evidence of that immense
amount of care and labour and thought in their construction,
or of that sense of the beautiful, which characterizes the great
temples of India. The wooden pillars, often plain, and the
grotesquely painted walls which one mostly sees in China,
are a poor substitute for the stately marble pillars and
exquisite carvings of an Indian temple.
On May 29 our caravan was complete, and we left Mukden
to travel eastward to the Yalu river, on the borders of Corea.
We soon entered a hilly country, and the scenery became
perfectly lovely — hillsides covered with woods of a thoroughly
English type, oaks and elms such as we never see in India.
The valleys were filled with thriving little villages and hamlets,
and on the streams and rivers were glimpses of wonderful
beauty. The quantity of flowers and ferns, too, was extra-
ordinary. Mr. James was making a botanical collection, and
in one day we found five different kinds of lily of the valley,
maidenhair ferns of various forms — one especially lovely, in
shape like a kind of spiral bowl — lilies, violets, anemones,
and numbers of other English flowers. It was a perfect little
country that we were in, and we revelled in the beauties
about us.
One of the valleys we passed through was that from which
the founder of the Manchu dynasty had started on his career
Digitized by
Google
lo THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. i.
of conquest— a peaceful-looking little valley in which were
some avenues of magnificent elm trees. At this stage we
were much impeded by rain. Almost daily now it rained
heavily. We fortunately always had either inns or farm-
houses in which to put up at night, but we constantly got
wet through on the march, and the going was often very
heavy. We had work, too, to get over the ground at the
rate we wanted. We used to rise at 4.30 or 5 every
morning, pack up our things, have our breakfast, and then
hang about for two dreary hours whilst the lazy mule-men
were loading up their animals. On the march we had to
keep constant watch over the mules to help them over bad
places and prevent their wandering. At midday we halted
for a couple of hours to feed ourselves and our animals, and
then went on again till six or seven. More than once on
the march I remember being so tired that I lay down on a
fallen log, propped myself up against some branch, and went
off fast asleep in spite of the rain. What I felt particularly,
too, at this period was the want of milk and butter. The
Chinese and Manchus never milk their cows. They seem to
think it disgusting to drink milk. They will eat rats and
dogs, but they will not drink milk, or at any rate they don't.
And we missed this simple necessary very much, and
eventually had to take large quantities of oil with our food
in its place.
The heavy rain naturally swelled the rivers, and a dozen
miles from its source a stream would be unfordable. When
that is the case, the traveller has either to cross in one of the
native " dug-outs " — mere logs of wood with a hollow scooped
out down the centre — or wait several days till there is a lull in
the flood. This last is what we had to do on more than one
occasion, and in some ways I was glad ; for it gave us a little
rest and time to overhaul and repair our kit. On such occasions
we put up in some farmhouse near the river, and here out
Digitized by
Google
1886.] INDUSTRY OF CHINESE COLONISTS, ii
in the country, away from the crowds of the towns, we could
examine John Chinaman at leisure. All the part we were now
in has been colonized by pure Chinese, who are taking the place
of the original Manchus. These latter were few in numbers,
and had been drafted off with their families to garrison the
towns of China proper, and now the Chinese immigrants from
the over-populated or famine-stricken districts of China were
flowing into these Manchurian valleys, clearing away the forest,
and bringing year by year more of it under cultivation. They
were, in fact, doing here exactly what our colonists have been
doing for so many years in Canada. The amount of work they
got through was, I thought, marvellous. At the first streak
of dawn they rose, had a good meal, and then set to at that
heart-breaking work, clearing land of the stumps of trees which
they had felled. Hour after hour they would work away,
hacking and hewing at these, and some of them digging up
the ground and preparing it for a crop, and at midday they
would stop and have another square meal ; then return to
the same old wearing task till darkness set in, when they
would come trooping in for their evening meal. They were
for the most part strong, hard men, with enormous appetites.
Millet porridge, vegetable stews, and soups were their chief
food, which they ate out of bowls in huge quantities. Their
houses were often comfortable, well-built, and roomy, the roofs
being the especial feature, as they are in all Chinese houses, on
account of their great strength and solidity. The houses were
not always as clean as they might have been, but still were on
the whole far better homes than one would expect to find in
the backwoods of a colony. And I was a good deal struck
with the energetic spirit which these colonists showed in pushing
their way through the forests. A Chinaman is always known
to be industrious, but here was good tough vigour in addition.
At length we reached theYalu,the natural boundary between
Corea and Manchuria. It was a noble river where we struck
Digitized by
Google
12 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. i.
it — three hundred yards or so broad, and ten to fifteen feet
deep. Its sides were covered down to the water's edge with
forests, and at intervals, where the ground was flatter, were
patches of cultivation and a few farmhouses, or meadows
covered with flowers of every description^-often with masses
of stately lilies, some specimens of which measured six inches
across, or with waving sheets of purple irises and columbines.
Then gliding noiselessly across the scene would come a raft
drifting quietly down the river, and sadly tempting us to do
the same, instead of laboriously plodding our way through the
forest up the stream.
But we were now approaching the Ever- White Mountain,
and the interest of getting there would, we well knew, repay
all our exertions. As we neared it, however, our difficulties
gradually increased. At Mao-erh-shan, on the Yalu, two
hundred and eighty miles from Mukden, where we had expected
to get all ordinary supplies, we found hardly anything. For a
day or two before reaching this place, we had been living upon
very short rations, and had been looking forward to getting a
good square meal of meat when we arrived there. But only
some uneatable pork was to be had, and we were obliged to
content ourselves, in the meat line, with an egg curry, made
of salted eggs six months old, and only eatable at all with the
aid of a very strong curry.
We now had to leave the valley of the Yalu and plunge into
the heart of the forest which surrounded the White Mountain.
Day after day we ascended the ridges which run down from
it — up one side of the ridge and down the other, then up again,
and so on unendingly. We never saw anything but the trunks
of the trees. Even from the summits of the ridges nothing
was to be seen ; we were simply swamped in forest, and could
not see out of it I know of nothing more depressing than this»
to struggle on, forcing a way for the mules through the under-
growth, and hauling and shoving them up the slopes and rocky
Digitized by
Google
i886.] THE GREAT FOREST. 15
gullies, and then to arrive at the top and find ourselves still
hedged in by trunks of trees, and able to see nothing whatever
beyond. We were, too, afflicted by a scourge of mosquitoes
and midges. In no part of India have I felt them so much.
In the daytime we had the midges driving us wild with their
irritating pricks, and at nights the mosquitoes in clouds. By
simply closing the hand a dozen of them could be caught at
any time. Of course we had to wear veils the whole day long,
and keep our hands in our pockets or wrapped round with
cloth whenever we could ; but even then we suffered badly, and
washing was a positive torture. Gad-flies were another form
of torture invented for these parts. They would attack us
pretty constantly, but it was chiefly to the poor animals that
they directed their attention, and the wretched mules were
often covered with blood and driven wild by their attacks.
At night we would put up in a sable-hunter's hut These
are met with every twelve or fifteen miles, and each is the
head-quarters of a party of hunters who trap sables and also
seek the gfinseng root — the root of a plant upon which the
Chinese set great store for medicinal purposes. These huts
were suitable enough for the small parties who ordinarily
inhabited them, but when our large party came in addition
they were crammed tight We had to sleep in them, for to-
sleep outside amongst the swarms of mosquitoes and in the
damp of the forest was almost impossible. We therefore
packed ourselves into the huts, and were sometimes so tightly
squeezed in the row on the kang, that we had to lie heads and
tails with the Chinamen, to get ourselves all in. We had also
to keep a fire burning to raise smoke for the purpose of driving
off the mosquitoes ; so the heat on a summer's night and the
state of the atmosphere inside may be imagined! We, of
course, got quite inadequate rest, and that period of our journey
was a very trying one.
These hunters received us, as a rule, very well, but theirs
Digitized by
Google
14 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [CHAP. I.
was not an existence which we could envy. The sable-hunters
had a certain amount of excitement. They would set their
traps all over the forest, go their rounds to examine them, and
now and then, at rare intervals, find they had caught some-
thing. But the ginseng plant seekers would wander through
the forest day after day and all day long, and if they found
one plant in the season they would be content This plant
would be worth perhaps £\^^ for the Chinese believe the
genuine wild plant to have the most wonderful properties,
A remarkable point about these men is the strict code of
honour they have amongst themselves. At one place, for
instance, we noticed a clearing made in the undergrowth of
the forest round a small plant not far from the track. This
proved to be one of these much-sought-after plants. It had
been discovered by a man, but as it was not fully grown, it
had been left there to mature, and the standard of honour was
50 strict among these people, that, in spite of the value of the
plant and the ease with which it might have been carried away,
no one would touch it
Travelling on through the forest, we reached one of the
branches of the great Sungari river — ^an affluent of the river
Amur, and, at its junction, of even greater volume than that
river. This stream we now ascended, as it was said to flow
-down from the Ever-White Mountain we were in search of;
but after two days* travelling we were brought to a standstill,
.as regards mule-carriage, by a bog, through which it was
'impossible to take any animal. One man for carrying loads
was all we could secure, and so we had to reduce our baggage
to its very minimum, and each one carry his own, while the
one porter carried such supplies as we should be unable to
obtain on ahead ; for though we heard of there being one or
two sable-hunters' huts, the owners of these were said to be
almost starving themselves for want of food, there having been
.some hitch about the arrival of the fresh stock of provisions for
Digitized by
Google
i886.] THE EVER-WHITE MOUNTAIN, 15
the year. Shouldering our loads, we pushed our way through
the incessant bogs which now filled up the valley, and at night
■put up in the huts. This was the hardest piece of work we had
done, for we covered from fifteen to twenty miles a day, and
that through ground where we frequently sank up to our knees
and never felt sure of our footing, and with a load on our
backs to make it still more wearisome. Added to this was
the further trial that we had to place ourselves on half-rations.
Ever since we had entered the forest we had found a difficulty
in obtaining supplies ; flour was very scarce, so that we had
to live principally upon millet porridge, and meat was not
forthcoming as often as we should have liked after our hard
work. But now, as we approached the mountain, supplies
became scarcer still, and after we had left the mules, and
consequently while we were doing our hardest work, we were
on, fare which made me at least so ravenous that I more than
once went round to the hunters' cooking-pot and scraped out
all I could from the inside after they had finished their meal.
On three separate occasions I remember James, Fulford, and
myself all sitting down to dine off one partridge between us ;
this, with a little palatable soup and a scone was all we had
after our trying march.
We had, however, the satisfaction of knowing that we now
really were approaching the mysterious White Mountain. As
we climbed higher the forest began to open out, and on the
fourth day after leaving the mules we found ourselves at its
base, and saw it rising up above the forest It was with a sigh
of infinite relief that we looked upon it, but I cannot say that,
here in its solid reality, it inspired us with awe commensurate
with the mystery which had been attached to it. It certainly
rose high above all the surrounding forest-clad hills, and per-
haps in the British Isles would pass muster as a mountain ;
but it was not the snow-clad monarch we had expected to see,
and it afterwards proved to be but eight thousand feet in height
Digitized by
Google
i6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. i.
Still, here the mountain was, and what it lacked in grandeur
was made up for in beauty, for its sides were covered with the
most exquisite meadows and copses. In Kashmir there are
many beautiful meadows, but none to compare with those of
the Ever- White Mountain. These were such as I have never
seen equalled. Masses of colour, flowers of every kind, whole
meadows of irises and tiger-lilies and columbines, and grace-
ful, stately fir trees scattered about to relieve any excess of
colour and add to the beauty of the whole. And, looking
closer, we found ferns of the most delicate tracery, deep blue
gentians, golden buttercups, azaleas, orchids, and numbers of
other flowers of every type of beauty, all in their freshest
summer bloom.
The following day we visited some springs which form one
of the sources of the Sungari, and on the next we ascended
the mountain. The trees became fewer and fewer, and we
emerged on to open slopes covered with long grass and dwarf
azaleas, heather, yellow poppies, and gentians. Except the
steepness there was no difficulty in the ascent, and we made
for a saddle between two rugged peaks which crowned the
mountain. We pressed eagerly on to reach this, as from it we
hoped to look out beyond, far away over Corea on the opposite
side. At last we reached the saddle, and then, instead of the
panorama we had expected, we looked down in astonishment
on a most beautiful lake in a setting of weird, fantastic cliffs
just at our feet. We were, in fact, on an extinct volcano, -and
this lake filled up what had once been its crater. The waters
were of a peculiarly deep clear blue, and situated here at the
very summit of a mountain, and held in on every side by
rugged precipitous cliffs, this lake was particularly striking.
We tried to descend Vo its brim, but could find no way down the
cliffs ; so, after boiling a thermometer to ascertain the altitude,
I set out to ascend the highest of the rocky peaks which formed
a fringe around it The climb was a stiff* one. but I succeeded
Digitized by
Google
i886.] THE SOURCE OF THE SUNGARL 17
in reaching the summit — the very top of the Ever-White
Mountain — and from there I looked out over a billowy expanse
of forest-clad hills stretching away on every side, as far as the
eye could reach in the direction of Manchuria, and as far as
one could see over Corea; nothing but forest, except where
the lake lay below me like a sapphire in a setting of rock,
and it was only by this and by occasional glints of the river
that the monotonous green was broken.
But the lake was the saving feature. It appeared to be
about six or seven miles in circumference, and at its farther
end was an outlet, from which flowed the main branch of the
Sungari. This, then, was the source of that noble river which,
a few hundred miles lower down, we afterwards found to be
over a mile broad, and which has claims, indeed, to be con-
sidered the main branch of the great Amur — a magnificent
river excelled in size and grandeur by few others in the
world.
I rejoined my companions, and we set off rapidly down the
mountain-side, delighted at having successfully achieved the
object of our journey, and with the feeling that all our toil
had not been in vain. The Ever- White Mountain was not
white with snow, and therefore not as lofty as we had been
led to expect ; it was white, or partially white, with pumice-
stone from the old volcano. But it was a satisfaction to have
established this fact, and the beauty of its flower-covered slopes
and of the meadows at its base, and the solitude of the
wonderful lake at its summit, were ample compensation for
our disappointment in its height.
Three days later we were back at the place where we had
left our mules, and we ravenously devoured some eggs which
we managed to secure there. It is said to be good to rise
from a meal with an appetite. In those days we always rose
from our meals with magnificent appetites. It was the greatest
relief, however, not to have to carry a load any longer, and.
Digitized by
Google
i8 THE HEART Of A CONTINENT [chap. i.
happiness being merely a relative quality, we felt thoroughly
happy on the following day as we trudged along beside the
mules, with no weight on our backs to crush the heart out
of us.
Our intention now was to descend the Sungari to Kirin,
one of the principal towns of Manchuria, and situated about
three hundred miles from the source of the river, near where
it enters the more open part of the country. We had still
many days of weary plodding through the forest, climbing
ridge after ridge, crossing and recrossing tributary streams,
one of which we had to ford twenty-four times in the course
of a single march, and everywhere waist-deep. But at
length, and very suddenly, we found ourselves clear of the
forest, and in a populous district of extraordinary fertility.
The soil — all reclaimed from the forest — was almost black,,
and, judging from the crops, must have been wonderfully
rich. The houses were all new, large, and well built, and
provisions could be obtained in plenty. After rough travelling
in uninhabited parts, one really appreciates being amongst
men again and seeing active life all round ; and here, as
before, we were impressed by the vigour and prosperity of
these Chinese colonists breaking through the forest In Asia
one sees plenty of the old age-worn life, but on that conti-
nent it is only in very few places that one can see the fresh
young life of a colony pushing vigorously ahead.
On August 12 we reached Kirin, and the first round of
our journey was completed. Kirin is a large town of from
eighty to one hundred thousand inhabitants, very picturesquely
situated among wooded hills, on a bend of the Sungari, here,
only three hundred miles from its source, a majestic stream
a quarter of a mile broad and twenty feet deep. But it rained
incessantly while we were there, and the filth and smells of
the place, increased in consequence of this, prevented us from
enjoying as we should have done all its natural beauties
Digitized by
Google
i886.] CHINESE COOKERY, 19
Three weeks we remained here, paying off the mule-men
who had brought our baggage from Mukden, and arranging
for carts to continue our journey round Manchuria. The
chief attraction we found in the place was an arsenal recently
set up here entirely by Chinamen, and managed by them
alone, without any European guidance or supervision what-
ever. Here we found magazine rifles, gatling guns, and field-
guns being turned out in a very creditable fashion. We called
on the manager, who himself conducted us round the work-
shops. It was he who had started the place, and we were
fairly astonished to find such a really creditable establishment
in the heart of Manchuria, many hundreds of miles from the
coast, and in a country where there were neither railways nor
waterways, nor even good roads for the carriage of the heavy
and delicate machinery. Mr. Sung, the manager, had some-
thing more than mere imitative genius ; . he had also some
notion of invention and adapting. Having brought up an
initial plant of machinery, he had with that made more ; and
he had himself invented a magazine rifle. Coal he obtained
in the neighbourhood, and a certain amount of iron too, but
most of the latter had to be imported. He was very civil to
us, and invited us to dinner, where we met some other officials
of the place.
Chinese dinners are of the most elaborate description, and ^
this one was no exception. Course after course was served
up, till we must have had between thirty and forty of them,
including such delicacies as sea-slugs, sharks' fins, and birds-
nest soup. The Chinese are remarkably good cooks, and,
though the dishes are often served in a way which is not very
palatable to Europeans, there is no doubt that the actual
cooking is excellent. There were, for instance, little suet
dumplings, so beautifully cooked and so light that they
almost melted in the mouth like jelly. Some of the dishes
of vegetables were also extremely good, and I especially
Digitized by
Google
20 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap, i
recall a plate of stewed young celery. He may differ from us
as to the means of doing it, but it is evident that the Celestial
has a very good idea of the way to look after the inner man.
I cannot say, however, that I can bestow much praise on his
liquor department Warmed spirit distilled from rice is not
good, and taken as incessantly as a Chinese expects you to
take it, and as most Chinamen do take it, it is apt to make
you decidedly heavy, if not more, and sick as well But the
point in which the Chinese most excel in these social gather-
ings is in their duties as hosts. They are perfect hosts, full
of attention to their guests, of cheery bonhomie, and of con-
versation. There is elaborate politeness, and a good deal of
etiquette is observed, but no stiffness is apparent ; every one
IS cheery, and every one talks incessantly. It was a revelation,
indeed, to us to find what good fellows these Chinamen could
be amongst themselves. Seeing only the lower classes, the
mule-men, the loafers of the streets, and the frequenters of
the inns, one is apt to form a very unfavourable impression
of the Chinese, and to r^ard them as a rude, coarse, and un-
mannerly race, who hate strangers, and take little trouble to
disguise their feelings. But when one can see the Chinese
gentlemen at home, one modifies this impression very con-
siderably ; and personally, from this and other occasions on
which I afterwards had opportunities of meeting Chinese
gentlemen, I saw much to admire and even to like in them. I
liked their never-failing politeness to one another, which seemed
to me too incessant and sustained to be mere veneer, and
to indicate a real feeling of regard for one another. China-
men have little regard for strangers, but I think they have
for one another. Then, again, their cheeriness amongst them-
selves is a trait which one likes. The general impression
among Europeans is that Chinamen are cold, hard creatures
who have not a laugh in them. As a matter of fact, they have
plenty of heartiness and joviality when they care to indulge
Digitized by
Google
i886.] CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS. 21
in it. I should say, too, that their conversation is good ; it is
certainly bright, and it is very natural and well sustained. Of
course, in conversation with Europeans they do not excel ;
they are lamentably ignorant of geography, for instance, and
they generally annoy the stranger by asking if his country is
tributary to China. But in the conversation carried on amongst
themselves there seem to be many topics quite as good as
geography and the weather, and one hears long, well-thought-
out, and well-expressed arguments on philosophic and moral
subjects, freely interspersed with quotations from their classics.
A Chinaman is perhaps rather too celestial, rather too much
up in the clouds and above ordinary mortals, and certainly
shows too little interest in the common everyday affairs of
this world ; but he is an interesting man to meet at home, and,
mingled with the irritation which his superciliousness so often
inspires, I often had a feeling of real regard for a man who can
aspire to such a lofty standpoint as the Chinaman does, and
in his case I felt that it was not all simple self-conceit, for he
had in him the pride of belonging to an empire which has
stood intact for thousands of years, and which was approaching
civilization when we ourselves were steeped in barbarism.
Digitized by
Google
22 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ii.
CHAPTER II.
MANCHURIA TO PEKING.
** Epirus* bounds recede, and mountains fail ;
Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye
Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale
As ever Spring yclad in grassy dye :
Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties lie,
Where some bold river breaks the long expanse,
And woods along the banks are waving high.
Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance,
Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn trance.''
On September 3, after a three weeks' rest, we set out once
more on our travels, heading this time towards Tsi-tsi-har.
The roads were to be comparatively level and good, so we
were able to return to the use of carts, and travel over twenty-
five miles or so daily. But the season was bad, rain had been
falling constantly, and in consequence the roads — of course,
none of them metalled — were simply quagmires. Even just
outside Kirin we stuck for a couple of hours in a hopeless
mass of mud, and delays more or less lengthy were constant
But we had three mules to each cart, and when one was badly
stuck we harnessed on a team from another to help, and in
this way managed to get over more ground each day than the
state of the roads would have led one to believe possible. At
about twenty-four miles from Kirin we crossed the Sungari by
a ferry, and kept along the right bank of the river. The hills
became lower and lower and the valleys wider as we proceeded,
till we soon found ourselves in open undulating country, very
richly cultivated and thickly inhabited. The crops, now in
Digitized by
Google
i886.] THE STEPPES OF MONGOLIA, 23
full ear, were extraordinarily heavy ; the millet especially, both
the large and the small, being unusually heavy in the ear.
The villages, too, were all of a considerable size and numerous.
But separate farmhouses or small hamlets were seldom seen
— probably on account of the brigandage, which was very rife
all over North Manchuria. We heard frequent tales of carts
being attacked on the road, and of villages and even towns
being pillaged. We had, however,! no personal experience of
these brigands, and this part of our journey, though interesting
as lying through a populous and thriving district, was lacking
in incident and excitement
Just beyond Petuna we again struck the Sungari, at the
point where the Nonni joins it from the north. Here in the
swamps by the river we had an experience of mosquitoes
which quite eclipsed all former records. Thinking the marsh
looked a likely place for snipe, we went down into it We
heard a suppressed kind of roar, like that of the distant sea,
and we thought it must come from the river. But it was
nothing but mosquitoes. For a foot or two above the marsh
they were in myriads. For a short time we tried snipe-
shooting, for there were a number of snipe about; but the
mosquitoes bit right through our breeches and gloves, and
drove us so mad we had to leave hurriedly.
The Sungari was here spread out in many channels to a
width of some ten miles. We crossed it by a ferry, and on
the opposite side we soon entered the open rolling steppes of
Mongolia. The cultivation ceased, and with it the villages, so
that we now only passed an occasional hut inhabited by
Mongols, and entered on a quite new phase of our journey.
Scarcely a tree was to be seen, and for mile after mile we
passed over rolling downs covered with rich grass and exquisite
flowers. In the hollows were often lakes of very considerable
size, some of them several miles in lengfth. And these were
covered with swarms of water-fowl — thousands and thousands
Digitized by
Google
24 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. li.
of duck and geese. Indeed, these lakes must have been the
breeding.ground of the water-fowl, which, in the cold weather,
find their way down to the warmer parts of the continent.
Large numbers of bustard, too, we saw, and many herds of
antelope.
The chief attraction for us, however, at this period of our
journey, was the milk and cream we could obtain. What a
treat it was, after nearly four months without milk or any of
its products, to drink some of the rich delicious stuff which
these Mongols brought us ! At one time in the forest, when
I had been out of sorts, I had been allowed a glass of con-
densed milk from our stores as a medical comfort ; it was such
a luxury to get even this, that I was sorely tempted to feign
sickness for another day to obtain more. But here was the
pure article in any quantity, and as rich and thick with cream
as any from Devonshire. These Mongols made, too, a sort of
cream cheese which was most delicious. It was a kind of
solidified Devonshire cream, which they made by simmering
milk for about twenty-four hours, and then removing the cake
of cream formed at the top, drying it, and rolling it up like a
pancake. It was rather less thick than a cream cheese, but
thicker than Devonshire cream, and it tasted exactly like the
latter. The advantage of it was that we could roll it up in
a piece of paper, and eat it in alternative bites with a piece of
bread on the line of march. And plenty of it we did eat in
this way.
Of the Mongols we saw very little. They were probably
removed from the main line of traffic, and kept well clear of
it and of the shady characters who might frequent it We
only came across two of the felt yurts which are their
characteristic abodes, and those Mongols whom we did meet
lived in houses, and were more or less tamed and settled.
At length, on September 20, we reached Tsi-tsi-har, a
large town of about forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, and
Digitized by
Google
1886.] HULAN. 25
the seat of government of the province of the same name^
which fills up the whole of North Manchuria. But there was
little to see beyond the ordinary shops, the dirty streets, and
tumble-down temples of every Chinese town. This was our
most northern point Winter was approaching, and already
we had had some touches of frost We had yet much ground
to get over, and so we struck off back again towards the
Sungari, making this time for Hulan. We passed over some
more of the Mongol steppes, and now, as the rainy season had
ended and the roads were dry, we could take our carts along
at a trot, and would often cover over thirty miles in the day.
The country was rolling prairie as before, and covered with
rich grass, on which we often saw large herds of ponies feeding
— ^fine, strong little ponies, like miniature cart-horses, and very
hardy.
Suddenly one day we drove right into cultivation. We had
crossed the boundary-line between the Mongol and Chinese
territory. It is a purely artifical line laid across the downs,
but up to that line the Chinese cultivate the land ; beyond it
the Mongols hold sway, and no attempt to reducing the land to
cultivation is made. Consequently, the boundary-line between
Chinese tecritory proper and that which the Chinese still allow
to the Mongols is formed by rows of millet and wheat
Hulan, situated at about two hundred miles from Tsi-tsi-har,
we found to be a new and thriving town only recently built,
and surrounded with a strong masonry wall. The shops were
excellent, and there was a busy, bustling air about the whole
place. This town had in the previous year been attacked by
a band of brigands, who had sought out the principal merchants,
levied black-mail from them, and then decamped. It was here,
too, that a French missionary, Pere Conraux, had been most
cruelly tortured and almost killed in the year previous to our
visit
From this point we turned northward again to visit another
Digitized by
Google
26 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ii.
new town named Pei-lin-tzn, where we had heard a Roman
Catholic Mission was established. We were unfortunate, however,
in finding that M. Card, the priest in charge, was not at home.
So we turned southward again to Pa-yen-su-su, another mission
station, where we found both its own director and M. Card
from Pei-lin-tz4. It was indeed a pleasure to see these men,
and to have that warm, heartfelt greeting which one European
will give to another, of whatever nationality, in the most distant
comers of the world. Except the French consul who had
been sent to inquire into the outrage on Pfere Conraux in the
previous year, no European had ever before visited these
distant mission stations, and we, on our part, had not met a
European for several months now, so the delight of this
meeting may be well imagined. But, apart from that, we were
very deeply impressed by the men themselves. Few men,
indeed, have ever made a deeper impression on me than did
these simple missionaries. They were standing, transparent
types of all that is best in man. There was around them an
atmosphere of pure genuine goodness which made itself felt
at once. We recognized immediately that we were not only
with good men, but with real men. What they possessed was
no weak sentimentality or flashy enthusiasm, but solid human
worth. Far away from their friends, from all civilization,
they live and work and die ; they have died, two out of the
three we met in those parts, since we left When they leave
France, they leave it for good ; they have no hope of return ;
they go out for their whole lives. They may not make many
converts, but they do good. No man. Chinaman or European,
who came in contact for five minutes with M. Raguit, M. Card,
or M. Riflfard, whom we afterwards met, could help feeling the
better for it. Their strong yet gentle and simple natures,
developed by the hardships of their surroundings and the
loftiness of their ideals, and untainted by the contact with
worldly praise and glamour, impressed itself on us at once,
Digitized by
Google
1886.] A PATTERN MISSION STATION, 27
and, as we saw evidenced in the people around, had affected
the Chinese likewise.
'' Great deeds cannot die ;
They, with the sun and moon, renew their light
For ever, blessing those that look on them."
Others may bring discredit on the missionary cause, and
produce the feeling of hostility to it which undoubtedly exists,
but these are the men who are a true light in the world, and
who will spread the essence of Christianity — the doing of good
to others — abroad.
This remote mission station — established here where no
other Europeans had penetrated — was a source of the greatest
interest to us, and fulfilled our highest ideal of such a station.
There was here no elaborate costly house, no air of luxury,
such as may be seen in many missionary establishments
elsewhere, but everything was of the most rigorous simplicity.
There was merely a plain little house, almost bare inside, and
with stiff, simple furniture. Under such hard conditions, with
such plain surroundings, and shut off for ever from intercourse
with the civilized world, it might be supposed that these
missionaries would be dull, stern, perhaps morbid men. But
they were precisely the contrary. They had a fund of simple
joviality, and were hearty and full of spirits. They spoke now
and then with a sigh of "la belle France," but they were
evidently thoroughly happy in their lives, and devoted to their
work.
From these simple hospitable mission stations we made our
way to Sansing. Every day now it was becoming colder, and
at one place we were delayed for a day by a very heavy snow-
storm. We had to hurry along, for the missionaries had
assured us that in winter the thermometer fell to over 40°
below zero Fahrenheit, and had showed us a thermometer
which they had used, on which they had seen the mercury
fall to —47° Centigrade. The country we passed through was
Digitized by
Google
28 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ii.
now hilly, and covered with copses of wood — oak and birch.
Nothing could have been more like an English country scene,
and on the edges of these copses we regularly found some
excellent pheasant-shooting. All day long, too, flock after
flock of geese flew by us overhead, making towards the south.
Usually these were a long way out of shot, but on a windy
day they would often be forced down so as just to top the
hills, and then from the summit we would get a shot at them
as they flew over.
We once more crossed the Sungari, and on October 13
reached Sansing, an older town than those we had recently
passed through, and with much less life and bustle about it.
Very good furs, however, were to be obtained here, and, as hard
winter might be on us any day now, we fitted ourselves out with
long loose sheepskin coats, reaching well down to the ankles.
Sansing is the furthest inhabited place of any importance in
the direction of the Amur. The Sungari is here quite navigable
for boats of considerable size, and consequently the Chinese
had erected near by some fortifications of considerable strength.
We rode out to see them, and I was astonished to find a fort
constructed of earthwork, and planned on the most approved
European lines, and armed with Krupp guns of six or seven
tons' weight We walked straight into the fort, looked all
round it, found a Chinese soldier walking inoffensively about,
and asked him to unlock the doors of the magazine, which he
proceeded to do ; and then, having finished our inspection of
the fort, we were going quietly away, when the colonel of the
regiment stationed in it sent out and begged us to come in to
tea. He was most kind and hospitable, but in the middle of
the tea came a messenger who had ridden in hot haste from
Sansing, with an order from the general there to say that
we were on no account to be allowed inside the fort This
was most embarrassing. And, having seen all that was to be
seen, we assured our host, with every mark of sincerity, that
Digitized by
Google
i886.] SANSING TO NINGUTA, 29
these being the orders of the general, nothing should detain
us for a single moment, and that we would leave the fort
instantly. The hospitable old colonel, however, insisted upon
our finishing our tea, and I hope he never got into trouble
owing to the slackness of discipline of his men in letting us
into the fort
This fort would absolutely bar the passage of the Sungari
if the guns could be trusted, for they were of far larger
calibre than any which would be likely to be brought against
them ; and I marvelled at the perseverance and energy which
the Chinese must have shown in bringing them up here, for
they had had to be transported some hundreds of miles by
land, and over hilly country. Field guns and even siege
battery guns might have been transported fairly easily; but
it must have been a very heavy task indeed to carry these
huge pieces of ordnance, six or seven tons in weight, right
across Manchuria. But with the Chinese there is always a
doubt as to whether their gfuns will go off at the critical
time, for they are so utterly careless with them and with the
delicate machinery connected with them, and allow it all to
go to rust and ruin with such perfect disregard for conse-
quences, that one can never be sure that at the hour of need
the guns which they must have brought up with so great
an amount of labour will not fail them entirely.
After a couple of days* rest at Sansing, we turned southward
and ascended the Hurka river to Ninguta. The road was
execrable. We still had our carts, and how we, or rather the
drivers, managed to get them along a road really fit only
for pack-animals was a marvel. There was a constant
series of ascents and descents of spurs running down to the
river. These were nearly always steep, and the road narrow
and rocky. More than once our carts fell down the side, and
on one occasion a cart and its team turned two complete
somersaults as it rolled down the hillside. And yet, when
Digitized by
Google
30 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ii.
we had unpacked it and hauled it up on to the road again,
we found no serious damage done to either it or the mules.
The top covering of the cart was rather knocked about, but
the main part of it was still all sound ; and the mules merely
shook themselves and then stared stonily ahead, as if it were
all in the day's work and not to be wondered at. Both
Chinese carts and Chinese mules are astonishing products.
The carts are beautifully built, and made strong without being
too heavy ; and the mules are as hard as can be, and as a
rule really very docile. A Chinese carter seldom drives them
by the reins, but guides them entirely by voice and cracks
of the whip. In this way they struggle along till the cart
bumps up against some very big rock, and then they roll,
cart and all, down the hillside, or until they run into a mass
of bog and quagmire, when an additional team is harnessed
on from the cart behind. Even in this latter case the fate
of these mules is not always a happy one; and on one
occasion when, after struggling vainly with a single team to
pull a cart through, we had harnessed on another team and
then set to work, the shaft mule managed in some way to get
clear of the shafts, and got under the wheels of the cart, and
in this position was dragged along for a hundred yards or so
before the other mules could be stopped. We thought he must
be dead — suffocated with mud if nothing else. But he got
up, shook himself, stared stolidly about with an aggrieved
expression, as if it were really rather harder luck than usual,
and then allowed himself to be put in the shafts again and
go on with the rest of the day's work. These bogs occurred
constantly in the hollows between the spurs, and we had
frequently immense difficulty in getting through them. Small
villages were only occasionally met with, and the country
was far less well populated than that we had recently come
through. The hills were covered with woods of oak and
birch, and their summits with pines. Amongst them, it was
Digitized by
Google
i886.] NUNC HUN. 31
said, there were gold-mines, which, however, it was only per-
missible for government to work, as the Chinese think that
indiscriminate gold-mining only leads to fighting and quar-
relling and trouble, and the emperor therefore forbids it to
his subjects entirely. We crossed numerous side streams, and
these, as well as the Hurka itself, swarm with fish, mostly
salmon. The natives form dams across the side streams, and
catch them in hundreds. So at this time, what with pheasants,
ducks, geese, and salmon, we were living very comfortably,
and making up for our privations in the forests of the White
Mountain.
As we neared Ninguta the valley opened up into a wide
plain, which was well cultivated and populated, and on
October 26 we reached Ninguta, a flourishing place of nearly
twenty thousand inhabitants. Here we found a telegraph
station just opened. The Chinese attach considerable impor-
tance to this frontier, touching as it does on Russian territory,
and the construction of this telegraph line was one of the
signs of the interest they took in it The line was well and
stoutly constructed under the supervision of a Danish gentle-
man. But the office was manned entirely by Chinese, and
the language in use was English. Every clerk spoke English,
and it was a pleasure to us * to meet any one who spoke
our native tongue.
We halted here a couple of days, and then started for
Hunchun, a garrison post of some importance, situated on
the extreme frontier, and just at the point where Russian,
Chinese, and Corean territory meet. Winter was creeping
on apace now. The thermometer on the morning we left
Ninguta was at 11° Fahrenheit, so we had to push on hard
to get to our furthest destination, which we hoped might be
on the sea, at the Russian port just beyond Hunchun, and
then back to our original starting-point at Newchwang, before
the severest part of the Manchurian winter overtook us. The
Digitized by
Google
32 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ii.
road was terribly bad, again crossing over ridges fifteen
hundred to two thousand feet in height, passing over heavy
bogs and morasses, and through forests of pine, birch, and oak.
On November 5 we ^struck the Tumen river, which we had
expected to find a fine stream, like the Sungari near Kirin ;
but it proved to be only about a hundred yards wide, and
not deep enough to cover the rocks and boulders, which
showed up everywhere. No doubt it is fuller in the summer,
but it can at no season be navigable, as it was at one time
supposed to be.
Hunchun we found to be simply a garrison town. There
were here about three thousand troops, and the small town
there was served for little else than to supply their wants. But
we discovered in it a number of European articles which had
been imported from the Russian station close by. Clocks,
sweets, soap, canned fruits, and many other luxuries were to
be obtained here, and at a very reasonable price. We bought
a can of Singapore pineapples for a shilling.
Hunchun is situated in a plain at the foot of some low
hills, and round it in the direction of the Russians — here
only ten miles distant — are some strong forts mounted with
heavy Krupp guns. I was sufficiently astonished to see these
Krupp guns at Sansing, to which place they could have been
brought from Kirin by water, and between Kirin and the
<:oast there are only comparatively low hills ; but how the
Chinese could possibly have managed to drag these enormous
guns over the range upon range which separate Hunchun
from Kirin, and through all the morasses and forests we had
seen on the way, puzzled me much. Mr. James found that they
had placed the guns on gigantic sledges, and then brought them
over in the depth of winter, when the ground and bogs and
everything else were frozen hard. Yet even then they must
have had extraordinary difficulty for in winter in these parts
the snowfall is very heavy ; and these guns at Hunchun
Digitized by
Google
t3
o
X
<
o
<
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i886.] IN RUSSIAN TERRITORY. 33
remain a standing evidence of what can be done by sheer
hard labour, without the aid of modern machinery and ap-
pliances. I fear though, that this is the only good purpose
they will serve; for, as I remarked before, the Chinese have
no notion of looking after these delicate pieces of mechanism
when they have got them.
At Hunchun was stationed the lieutenant-general in charge
of the frontier — a person of considerable importance — and on
the day after arrival we proceeded to call on him. He
received us after dark at his official residence in some state.
Every official residence in China has a number of gateways,
more or fewer of which are opened according to the rank of
the visitor. In our case every gateway was opened ; the
courtyards were lined with soldiers, and the whole place
was lighted up with Chinese lanterns, which, as the residence
was newly built, and large and spacious, made the scene
very bright and picturesque. General I (pronounced Ee) was a
dignified, fine-looking old soldier, who had done much good
service in the Taeping rebellion. He was very polite and
courteous, treated us to some champagne, and talked to us
in an intelligent and interesting manner. Nobody can be
ruder than a conimon Chinaman, and nobody can be more
polite and refined than a Chinese gentleman when he wishes.
From Hunchun Mr. James had written to the commander
of the Russian post across the frontier, saying that we were
unprovided with passports to travel in Russian territory ; but
that, if he would give us permission to do so, we should like
very much to visit Novo-kievsk. We then started off* towards
Russian territory. At about ten miles from Hunchun, on the
summit of a hill, we saw a tall sort of obelisk with an
inscription on it, which we found to be the boundary-pillar
set up only a few months before by the Chinese imperial
commissioner sent in conjunction with a Russian commis-
sioner to define the frontier in this direction. Just beyond we
D
Digitized by
Google
34 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. il.
descried a couple of horsemen trotting towards us, and as
they drew near we saw that they were unmistakably Cossacks.
Neither of us had seen a mounted Cossack before ; but their
resemblance to all the pictures one sees of them in illustrated
papers and books was evidence enough who they were. There
was the same rough, shaggy-looking grey sheepskin cap, long
overcoats, high boots, whip, and rifle slung over the back,
that we knew so well from pictures. They saluted, and gave
Mr. James a letter from Colonel Sokolowski, who commanded
the Russian post The colonel said he would be most happy
to allow us to cross the frontier, and that he hoped that we
would visit his post and "accept the cordial but frugal
hospitality of a Cossack." We rode on, therefore, and at
about three miles from the frontier came across the Russian
station of Swanka, situated among some low rather* bare hills.
There were stationed here at the time of our visit about three
hundred Cossacks, Some low rough barracks had just been
constructed for them, and small cottages for the officers were
dotted about all round. The colonel's house was larger and
better built, but all of them were of the rough simple
description one would expect to find at a distant frontier
outpost
Here we were most cordially received by the Russian
colonel. Russians never err in want of cordiality — to English-
men especially — and in this remotest part of Asia, thousands
of miles from either St Petersburg or London, we met,
uninvited guests as we were, with real warmth of reception.
The colonel's house had about it no superfluity of luxury.
It had glass windows and a stove — which are luxuries the
Russian would not have met with if he had visited my own
head-quarters in the Chitral frontier during last year — ^but the
walls and the floors were quite bare, and the furniture of the
very simplest There was only one room, a part of which
was partitioned off" into a bedroom and dressing-room, and
Digitized by
Google
1886.] A RUSSIAN FRONTIER POST. 35
the whole place was crowded up with military stores — for a
Russian colonel seems to be his own quarter-master and store-
keeper — and all about the room were piles of saddlery, racks
of arms, and heaps of miscellaneous articles of Cossack
equipment
We had some light refreshment, and then the colonel took
"us round to see the barracks. Here the Cossacks were still
hard at work, completing the building before winter set in.
They were hard, strong-looking men, fair in complexion, with
-cheery good-natured faces; and there was about them a
workmanlike air, which gave one the idea that fthey could
and would turn their hands to anything. An English soldier
is perfectly right when he has shaken down on active service,
but in barracks he produces the impression that his dress is
his main interest in life, A Cossack, on the other hand,
wherever one meets him, looks as if he were ready to buckle
to and fight there and then ; and certainly dress or^appearance
is the last thing in the world he would trouble his head
about The barracks they had just constructed were rough
but clean, and about as good as those of our native troops
in India. They were inferior to those of the Chinese troops
over the way at Hunchun, but they were evidently of a
temporary description. The rations of the Cossacks consisted
principally of black bread, and they received also an allowance
of soup-like stew or stew-like soup ; but the whole ration was
decidedly inferior to what the British soldier gets. Their pay
is twenty roubles — about fifty shillings — z, month, which would
be very liberal if they had not out of it to pay for the whole of
their equipment The amount which actually reaches their
pocket was, according to the colonel, about a halfpenny a
■day ! It must indeed require conscription to induce men to go
through all a Cossack does for this ludicrous remuneration.
In the evening the colonel had a small dinner-party, when
three of the officers of the post and a Chinaman, who spoke
Digitized by
Google
36 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ii.
Russian, and acted as interpreter between the Russian and
Chinese officials, came in. After eating some small dishes,
such as sardines and salmon chips, at a side table, and washing
them down with a glass or two of vodka, which the colonel
informed us was a quite necessary proceeding, to clear our
throats for the dinner that was coming, we sat down to the
main business. First of all, a great soup -tureen was placed on
the table, filled with a good substantial soup. " No ceremony,
gentlemen ; je mange ^normementl^ said the colonel. And he
proceeded to ladle himself out a good helping, and every one
round the table then did the same. Each of us had at his
side six bottles of wine and beer, and these we were expected
to attack indiscriminately. " You're drinking nothing," shouts
out the colonel, as he stretches across the table and fills your
glass with claret — a very excellent sort of claret, he said, they
got from the Crimea. Before that was finished, another officer
would fill your glass — the same glass ! — with sherry. Then
the colonel would insist upon you trying the beer. Meanwhile
course after course of the most substantial dishes were being
served up. Each one helped himself from them, but in addition
one or other of the officers would cut off a huge slice and
put it down in one of our plates. The hospitality was genuine
and most hearty; but how we got through that evening was
a marvel to us. We had been leading a hard, healthy life
lately, so had good appetites, and were able to keep fairly
well in line with the Russians in the eating way. But the
drinking was terrible. If we had been allowed to keep at
one liquor we might possibly have survived ; but the mixture
of port and beer, and sherry and claret, and Guinness's stout
and vodka, backwards and forwards, first one and then the
other, was fatal
In the middle of dinner a jingling of bells was heard, and
up drove a tarantass. The door opened, and in came a young
Russian officer. He had arrived with his wife. *' Just in time
Digitized by
Google
i886.] A RUSSIAN COMMANDANT. 37
for dinner," said the colonel. "Make room over there, will
you?" and down the officer sat, while his wife went to her
house. The dinner went on without any break, and the new
arrival was treated as if he had been expected for dinner, and
had merely come in a little late. Yet he and his wife were
new to the post, and had just travelled for three weeks
through Siberia, across those awful roads ! No question seemed
to be asked of the lady whether she was tired or not after
her journey, and it never seemed to strike anybody that she
possibly could be.
Meanwhile the Chinaman was making himself thoroughly
at home. There is seldom any need to tell a Chinaman not
to be shy, and there certainly was not in this case. Before
dinner, he had arrived while the colonel was out, and had pro-
ceeded without any compunction into the Russian's dressing-
room, and made every use of his washing and dressing things.
And now at dinner he was equally free and easy. He never
had to be pressed to take some more to eat, or to fill up
his glass ; and he talked away incessantly the whole of dinner.
Nor did he think it necessary, though the guest of the
Russians, to refrain from telling stories very detrimental to
them. He thought, I suppose, that these stories would please
us ; but, coming from such a shifty gentleman, we were able
to put them at their real value, and beg him not to trouble
to continue.
Colonel Sokolowski had served in the Russo-Turkish war
and was very bitter on the subject of it. "Just look at all
we went through," he said. "All the thousands of men we
lost, and the hardships we had to undergo ; and what was the
result of it all ? What good did we get from it ? Nothing ;
absolutely nothing!" He was now in charge of this portion
of the frontier, and had under him, I understood, a regiment
of cavalry, a battery of artillery, and a battalion of infantry.
He was obliged, also, as the chief of a frontier, to speak two
Digitized by
Google
38 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP, il,
languages besides his own (and, as being especially useful
on the Chinese frontier, he spoke French and German). Yet>
on comparing notes, we found that I, as a subaltern in a
British cavalry raiment in India, was drawing more pay than
he was. And as for Mr. James, he could with his pay have
bought up a dozen — literally a dozen — of these frontier com-
mandants. Where, however, the Russian had the advantage
over us was in the matter of climate. It takes a great deal
of money indeed to make up for the sickening weariness of
hot weather in the plains of India. All these Russian officers
about us were strong, robust men, bursting with health.
Between them and a set of Englishmen in the plains of India
in the months of July and August there was a diflference which
is but poorly compensated for by a few additional rupees.
After we had eaten and drunk and talked for some hours,
the other officers went off, and the colonel said to us, "I
don't know quite where you will sleep. There is a sofa for
one of you ; the other two had better sleep on the floor.''
This we proceeded to do, and so passed our first night in
Russian territory. The colonel had spoken of his Cossack
hospitality being rough but cordial. It was both.
On the following day we started of for the larger station of
Novo-kievsk, fifteen miles distant, and situated on the coast.
On the way we met the commissaire, or chief civil official*
He spoke English, and was very polite to us, and volunteered
to allow us to go to Vladivostok — a trip which we should
very much like to have made, but we could not spare the
time for it. The fact of this Russian official being so civil to
us, though we had no passports, was another proof of the
friendly disposition of the Russians towards us. Novo-kievsk
was a small place with a garrison of a battalion of infantry,
a battery of artillery, and about a hundred mounted Cossacks.
There were very few buildings besides the barracks. The
roadways were unmetalled, and the whole place had a dreary.
Digitized by
Google
i886.] NOVO'KIEVSK. 39
uncared-for appearance. We could discover no Russian hotel
or inn of any description, and had to put up at a Chinese inn.
There were two Russian and four Chinese shops. The latter
were the best, and were about equal to a second-rate Parsee
shop in an Indian cantonment The barracks and cottages
of the married officers and men were very small, and white-
washed, and extremely cold and dreary in appearance. The
whole place, barracks, shops, church, and everything, was not
so large, and certainly not so well built, as the barracks of
my regiment in India. The absence of life, too, was particularly
striking. In the afternoon, at any rate, we expected to see
the officers and their wives coming out for some sort of amuse-
ment and exercise. But nobody appeared. The officers seem
to spend their spare time in smoking, drinking, and playing
cards ; and the wives, I conclude, in looking on, for there did
not appear to be much else for them to do.
There was a hill just by the town, and of course we climbed
it. We afterwards met the commissaire again, and he told
us that he had often heard that it was characteristic of English-
men that whenever they saw a hill they immediately craved
to go up it, and he was immensely tickled at hearing we
actually had climbed this hill. He said he had scarcely known
a single Russian in the place ascend it ; but here, directly an
Englishman arrives, he immediately proceeds to do so. From
the top we obtained a view over Possiet Bay, on which this
little station of Novo-kievsk is situated, and on the opposite
side of the water, about two miles distant, we could make out
the small settlement of Possiet, consisting of thirty or forty
houses.
On descending the hill, we found a squad of recruits hard
at work drilling. They carried a knapsack and the great-coat
in a roll round it and over the body. They were being taught
to march with the leg kept very stiff and straight, and a smart
little adjutant was dancing about up and down the line, every
Digitized by
Google
40 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. chap. ii.
now and then catching some man, who was out of step or
dressing, a tremendous punch on the nose! The men were
small — I should not say they averaged more than five feet
five inches or five feet six inches — but they were thick-set
and robust-looking, and as hard as all Cossacks seem to be.
We were close here to the Corean frontier, so there were
numbers of Coreans about. Many are settled in this valley
and seem to flourish and to be looked upon with favour by
the Russian authorities. They always appeared to me to be
rather a dull, insipid race, but they are said to be quiet and
orderly, and as the Russians want population to cultivate and
improve the land, so much of which is now merely run to waste,
they are welcomed to Russian territory to carry out the work
which the Russians themselves seem incapable of. Colonel
Sokolowski told us that his government were extremely anxious
to have all this Eastern Siberia colonized by Russians. They
would, and did, give every encouragement they could to
settlers ; they gave them free farming implements, horses, and
cattle, and brought them out from Russia free of expense ;
but the settlers had no energy or vigour ; they accepted all
that was given them, and set to work to produce enough to
live on, but nothing beyond. "If you English," said the
colonel, " had had this country, you would have made a mag-
nificent place of it by now ; but our Russians have none of
that colonizing spirit you have, and the country*is only very
slowly opened up." Since that time, however, the Siberian
railway has been taken in hand. The Russians are waking
up in earnest, and a great future ought to lie before these
magnificently fertile tracts of Eastern Siberia. What the
Chinese colonists have been able to :do on their side of the
border is a type of what the Russians could do also. And
with a railway to aid in its development, all these regions
about the Amur and its tributaries ought to equal the most
thriving parts of Canada.
Digitized by
Google
^^^'] ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.
41
We only stayed one day in Novo-kievsk, and then returned
to our friend Colonel Sokolowski's post, dining with him there
again, and meeting there the commissaire. The talk turned
on the subject of English encroachments. These two Russian
officials said people were always talking of English designs
against Russian territory, and it was curious to find here the
same kind of alarmist rumours and suspicions of hyper-crafty
designs and deep-laid schemes of aggression that we are so
accustomed to in India. The British fleet had only a few
weeks before visited Possiet Bay, and immediately all the cacklers
had set to work to find a hidden object for this. The English
intended, they supposed, to bombard Possiet and seize a port
here in Eastern Siberia as they had just done at Port Hamilton.
Fortunately for Mr. James and myself, both the military and
civil officials in charge on this frontier were more wide-minded,
even-tempered men, and, as I have shown, treated us with
marked civility and without any sign of suspicion, so that we
were enabled to carry out a most interesting little visit.
Digitized by
Google
42 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, iik
CHAPTER ;ill.
BACK TO PEKING.
We now turned our faces homewards. We had reached
the limit of our journey, and now had to hurry back to the
coast at Newchwang. Mr. James went by a short cut to Kirin^
while Fulford and I, with the carts, travelled round by Ninguta
to meet a man whom we expected with letters. On November
II we left Hunchun, and now winter had regularly set in.
The thermometer was at zero or a degree or two above or
below it, and snow was beginning to fall. At Ninguta we
found the river, which we had three weeks before crossed in
a ferry, and which was about one hundred and fifty yards
broad and with a by no means slow current, now frozen over
so completely that we could run our heavily laden carts over
on the ice. Here at Ninguta we met our man, and at last
received letters. We had not received a single batch since
we had started on our journey six months before, and, after
all the hardships and the frequent ennui of travel, the delight
of getting in touch again with one's friends and inhaling one
soft breath of air from our native land was intense and almost
bewildering. It made us forget all the hard part we had gone
through; that all seemed a dream now, and just that touch
from outside put enough new energy into us to have started
us contentedly on another fresh journey if need had been.
Fulford and I met with no incident on our road to Kirin^
though we passed the body of a man who had on the previous
day been murdered by brigands ; and on November 26 we
rejoined Mr. James at Kirin. The great Sungari was now
Digitized by
Google
i886.] . ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION. 43
frozen over hard. The ice was more than a foot thick on it^
and we were able to trot our carts smoothly across a river three
hundred yards wide and twenty feet deep.
From Kirin we did not proceed direct to the coast, as we
were anxious to visit the head-quarters of the Roman Catholic
mission in North Manchuria, at a village named Hsiao Pa*
chia-tzu, about twenty miles from Kuan-cheng-tzu. On ap-
proaching this place, we saw from far away over the plain the
tower of a church — a remarkable innovation in a Manchuriaii
landscape. On our arrival we were cordially welcomed by
the two priests — Pfere Litot and Pfere Maviel — and introduced
to the bishop, a noble-looking, kindly gentleman, who had
lived for over thirty years in the country, and has since died
there. A noticeable feature in this mission was that the. whole
village was Christian. The missionaries had begun by edu-
cating and training children as Christians. Tfiese had grown
into men, and had sent their children in their turn, and in the
course of time the whole village had become Christian. We
attended the service on Sunday, and were very much struck
by the really sincere and devout character of these converts.
Brought up from their childhood as Christians, and under the
kindly, genial influence of these good priests, the people of
this little village seemed like a different race from the cold,
hard Chinamen around them.
We could only stay one day, and the next we pushed on
to Mukden. The cold was now becoming intense. On
account of the heavy traffic on the road, we had to make
very early starts in the morning so as to secure places at
the inns in the evening. We rose at two or three every
morning, had a good plate of porridge and some tea, and
then started off. For the first hour or two it would, of
course, be dark. Snow covered the ground, and the ther-
mometer would read anything from zero to 14*^ Fahrenheit
below zero, which Was the coldest we registered. But
Digitized by
Google
44 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. hi.
though it was so cold, I do not remember suflering very
much from it. The air was generally still, and we had the
advantage of starting from a warm house with something
warm inside us, and at the end of our day's march, we again
found a good warm room to go to. It was afterwards, on
the Pamirs and in the Himalayas, that I really felt the cold,
for there, instead of a warm room to start from, I only had
a small tent, and sometimes no tent at all, nor sufficient fire-
wood for a fire, and the high altitudes, by causing breath-
lessness and bringing on weakness, added to my discomfort
Here in Manchuria, unless it happened to be windy — and
then, of course, it was really trying — the cold affected us
very little. The roads were frozen hard and the snow on
them well beaten down by the heavy traffic, and we trundled
along a good thirty miles a day.
The traffic in this winter season was wonderful. I counted
in a single day's march over eight hundred carts, all heavily
laden and drawn by teams of at least two and many of
them nine animals, ponies or mules. A main road in Man-
-churia in the winter is a busy scene, and these strings of
carts going along on the frosty morning, with the jingling
bells on the teams, and the drivers shouting at their animals,
were signs of life and animation which we had hardly
expected to see after our first experience on the heavy,
muddy roads in the summer. The inns were numerous and
crowded, and as a string of carts passed by the inn, men
would come running out, proclaiming the advantages of their
particular hostelry, and trying to persuade the carters to come
in. Then, when the carts stopped, the inn men would bustle
about, fetching grain and fodder for the animals and food
for the men, and there was as much bustle and activity as
in a market town in England. I remarked, too, how very
well the carters fed their animals. These Manchurian, or
rather Mongolian, ponies and mules are never allowed any
Digitized by
Google
i886.] A FROZEN MIST. 45
blankets or clothing of any description, and stand out quite
bare all night in a cold so great that I have even seen the
hoar frost lying thick on an animal's back in the morning.
But they are fed enormously while they are in work. They
are given in the day as much as sixteen pounds of grain,
besides bran and chopped millet-stalks. When they are not
at work they are eating, and the eating and the work
together occupy so much time that I could never discover
when they slept. The programme for these animals was ta
start an hour or two before daybreak in the morning. At
midday, or somewhat before, they would halt, and the instant
they had stopped they would be put to a trough, which would
then be piled up with a feed of barley or millet mixed up with
bran and chopped millet-stalks or straw. This and watering
would occupy them the greater part of the two hours* halt.
They would then start off again for the rest of the day's
journey, and halt for the night at dusk. Immediately on
arrival they would be given another of these enormous feeds,
and in the middle of the night a third. Then the next
morning they would be off again before daylight Grain, of
course, was very cheap and plentiful, but in no other part of
Asia have I seen animals so well fed as in Manchuria, and
the result was that their owners could get the fullest amount
of work out of them, so that two animals would draw their
twelve hundred pounds of goods for thirty miles a day without
any difficulty.
The country we passed through was very pretty even in
winter, and must have been really beautiful in summer. It
was undulating, well covered with trees, and intersected with
many little streams and rivers. At this season it was all under
snow, but we saw one morning one of the most perfectly lovely
sights I have ever seen. I have never seen a similar sight,
either before or since. It was a frozen mist. As the sun
rose we found the whole air glittering with brilliant particles
Digitized by
Google
46 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. hi.
sparkling in the rays of the sun — and the mist had encrusted
everything, all the trunks of the trees and all the delicate
tracery of their outlines, with a coating like hoar frost. The
•earth, the trees, and everything in the scene was glistening
white, and the whole air was sparkling in the sunlight It lasted
but a short time, for as the sun rose the mist melted away,
but while it could be seen one seemed to be in a very fairyland.
We passed through many villages and thriving little towns,
and at length, after covering the last ninety miles in two
days, we arrived at Mukden and found ourselves among our
own countrymen again. We drove up to the Scottish mission
established here, the members of which had been particularly
kind to us on our previous visit to Mukden, and had pressed
us to stay with them on our return. Messrs. Ross and
Webster and Dr. Christie came running put of the house as
they saw us driving up in the cart, and it was only as we
were shown into a cosy drawing-room, where the ladies were
having tea, that we realized how rough we had grown on the
journey. We had each of us developed a beard, which, as
well as our hair, now, in the light of civilization, seemed
very unkempt. Our faces were burning red from the exposure,
and our clothes — especially our boots — ^were worn out and
torn with the rough wear they had undergone. We had had
many trials on the journey, but this facing a ladies' tea-party
in a drawing-room in our disreputable condition was the
hardest of them all As soon as, by the light of comparison,
we had discovered our unpresentable state, we begged to be
allowed to go and do the best we could for ourselves. Mr.
Webster then produced every manner of luxury for us— clean
white shirts and, what to me was most acceptable of all, some
socks. For some time past my own had been worn to shreds,
and as my boots too, as well as a pair which Mr. James had
very kindly given me, were all in pieces, my feet had been
sadly galled and blistered.
Digitized by
Google
1886.] A SCOTTISH MISSION. 47
Then we made our way back to the drawing-room, and as
the novelty of a return to civilization wore off, we felt more
and more the genial influences around us. The Scottish are
always hospitable, but few even of them could have exceeded
in hospitality these missionaries at Mukden. Mrs. Webster
was incessantly at work devising some fresh form of comfort
for us — at one time making up a cosy room for each of us,
at another producing every kind of clothing, and at another
bringing out the most astonishing variety of Scottish cakes
and scones and muflins.
This Scottish mission is established with a special object,
and on lines different from most other missions. The object
is to try and get at the Chinese officials and gentry ; to preach
to the lower classes as well, but to make an especial attempt
to get in touch with the gentry and upper classes of society.
With this object, highly trained men are sent out, and the
mission is established with some "style," though I use this
word not to imply any particularly luxurious surroundings,
but rather to impress the difference from the extremely
simple and plain establishment of other missions which I
have seen. It is recognized that Chinese officials are
reluctant to mix freely with men who live in very humble
houses and dress indifferently, and it is thought that men
who adopt a higher style of living and dress will have more
chance of meeting with these sensitive Chinamen. It is,
moreover, considered by the heads of this mission that men
will work better in a distant land if they are accompanied by
their wives to cheer and encourage them and help on the
mission work by teaching children. It is part, too, of the
general line of action that at each mission station there should
also be a missionary doctor, through whom first access
may be gained to men who might otherwise never be
approachable.
This class of mission does not inspire the same amount of
Digitized by
Google
48 TltE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, iiu
enthusiasm, as, for instance, that of the French missionaries
we had met in Northern Manchuria; but it may be quite as
effective, and for the immediate object, that of gaining access
to the higher classes, it is probably much better suited. The
medical part of the mission, especially, is eminently practical,,
and likely to be appreciated by the people. As we ourselves
saw, high Chinese officials did make use of the services of
Dr. Christie, and, though it cannot be expected that, because
a man is cured of an illness, he should straightway become a
Christian, it is evidently an advantage to both the Chinaman
and the missionary that they should have had the oppor-
tunity of coming in contact with one another. Something
of the strong earnest character of the medical missionary
must be reflected on to the Chinaman, and the missionary on
his side will have been able to learn something of the prejudices
and difficulties of the educated classes of the Chinese.
We could only spare one full day's halt at Mukden, and
we then pushed on to Newchwang, where we arrived on
December 19, just seven months after we had left it. Here
Mr. James lodged with Mr. Allen, the consul, while I was
most hospitably entertained by Mr. Edgar, the commissioner
of Chinese customs. It is a well-authenticated and pleasing
fact that wherever you meet Englishmen on the borders of
civilization, even though you may be utter strangers to them,
you will be treated as if you were their most intimate, life-
long friend This happens all over the world, and it is an-
unmistakable proof that the true feeling of men towards
each other is one of good-will. Men are at heart sociable
and anxious to know each other and attach themselves to
one another, and the coldness and restraint of intercourse in
civilized parts is merely the product of civilization — an out-
ward veneer only — covering the real warmth of heart which
every man has, and which immediately becomes apparent
when he leaves the centres of civilization.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
4886.] MR. JAMES. 49
At Newchwang our party broke up ; Mr. James went
off to Port Arthur and thence to Japan, while Mr. Fulford
and I proceeded to Peking. After these years I feel strongly
how much I owe to Mr. James. It was through him that I
had thus gained my first experience of real travelling, and,
though I did not appreciate it at the time, afterwards, when
I had myself to head an expedition, I realized what sterling
qualities of steady, dogged perseverance he must have
possessed to lead our party successfully through the forests
to the mysterious Ever-White Mountain. I have always
wondered that a man, who had held high offices in India
and been accustomed to the luxurious style of camp life of
an Indian civil officer, should in his holiday-time choose to
rough it as Mr. James did. As I used to see him marching
sturdily along through the forest, the marshes, and especially
when he had to carry his kit on his back, I used to marvel.
To a young subaltern the thing was natural, but when a
high Indian official of more than twenty years' standing did
it, there must have been in him a wonderful amount of " go '*
and pluck, and this Mr. James undoubtedly possessed.
The Manchurian journey was completed, but some general
words about the country may be interesting. Those who
wish for full information can find it in Mr. James's "Long
White Mountain." In the first place, it will have been
gathered from the narrative that the country is one of extra-
ordinary fertility. Both in this respect and in its climate it
seems to resemble the best parts of Canada. It is mostly
land formerly covered with forest, and consequently the soil
has all the richness which the accumulation of decaying
vegetation through many ages gives. A very large propor-
tion of the country is, indeed, even now under forest, though
every year the Chinese colonists eat further into it. The
climate is severe in winter. At Newchwang, on the coast,
the thermometer falls to lo*^ or 12** below zero Fahrenheit;
E
Digitized by
Google
50 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. hi.
and in the north, when the full force of winds which sweep
across two continents is felt, the thermometer, according to
the French missionaries, falls, as I have already mentioned, to
more than 40° below zero Fahrenheit. The summers are
warm, but not hot, the maximum temperature being from
90° to gs"" Fahrenheit. The springs are said to be very
beautiful, and the autumns are crisp and bright. The rain-
fall, judging from our experiences, must be considerable, and
the country receives the full benefit in that respect of its
proximity to the ocean.
Of the mineral products of the country it is impossible
for me to give an accurate account, but we met with a coal-
mine, an iron-smelting furnace, and a small silver-mine within
twenty miles of each other, and gold is found in many parts of
the country. In what quantity these minerals are obtainable
I am unable to say. The country must be thoroughly explored
by some competent mineralogist before even an approximate
estimate can be given.
The vegetable production includes, besides timber (fir, oak,
elm, and walnut), wheat, beans, hemp, poppy, tobacco, and rice.
The people cultivate the land with great industry, and, assisted
by nature, extract the most plentiful crops from it Large
quantities of beans and bean oil are brought down to the
coast for exportation to other parts of China.
Of the people some account has already been given. Mr.
Taylor Meadows, a former consul at Newchwang, and Mr.
James calculate the population at from twenty to twenty-three
millions ; but of these not one million are real Manchus, and
the remainder are Chinese immigrants. Manchuria is therefore
populated by Chinamen, and not by Manchus. These Chinese
colonists, like Chinese everywhere, are hard-working and
industrious, and the country flourishes and develops in spite
of the bad administration and of the brigandage so rife in all
parts, and especially in the north. The people are well housed.
Digitized by
Google
1886.] THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. 51
well fed, and well clothed. Food is plentiful and cheap, and
the excellence of the winter roads makes it possible to import
goods readily from the coast The character of the people
will have been gathered from the previous narrative. They
are certainly not attractive to strangers, and at the end of a
journey one leaves them without regret ; but they have this
good quality of industry — they are persevering in their efforts
at colonization, and thrifty in their habits.
Two days before Christmas, Fulford and I had to start for
Tientsin. It was rather a wrench to have to leave our friends
just before Christmas in this way, but I thought it possible
that we might just reach Tientsin before the river was closed,
and so be able to get away down the coast at once. Christmas
Day we spent in a Chinese inn. We, of course, had a plum-
pudding, which had been presented to us by our friends, and
some wine in which to drink the health of those at home, and
certainly it had been a great satisfaction to me to have been
able to telegraph home from Newchwang our safe return from
our journey, so that now at Christmas-time they might feel no
uneasiness on my account.
We passed nothing of interest till we reached Shan-hai-kuan,
the point where the Great Wall of China begins, or ends, in the
sea. This was a sight really worth seeing. A line of hills
between two or three thousand feet in height, stretched from
inland close down to the seashore ; and all along these heights,
as far as the eye could reach, ran this wonderful wall, going
down the side of one hill, up the next, over its summit and
down the other side again, and then at the end coming finally,
down and plunging right into the sea till the waves washed
the end of it It was no trumpery little wall, nor such a wall
for instance, as one sees round a modern prison, but a regular
castle wall, such as they built in the Middle Ages round their
strongest castles, thirty or forty feet high, of solid stone, and
fifteen feet or so thick, wide enough for two carriages to drive
Digitized by
Google
52 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. hi.
abreast on it, with towers every few hundred yards. This was
the Great Wall of China at its commencement, and it is, I think,
almost more wonderful than the Pyramids. I have seen both.
Both astounded me by their evidence of colossal industry ; but
the Great Wall of China, pushing straight over the mountains,
regardless of height and distance, is, perhaps, the most impres-
sive of the two. There are points, however, in which the
Pyramids excel the Great Wall. The Pyramids are perfect
throughout Not a flaw can be found. Each huge block is
laid with absolute precision, and there is no sign inside or out
of anything less enduring than these immense blocks of stone
being employed. The Great Wall, on the other hand, though
it runs for hundreds of miles in the magnificent state I have
described, dwindles down eventually to a mere mud wall, and,
moreover, even in the best parts, the inside of it is only rubbish.
It is not perfect throughout its entire length, nor solid right
through. The Pyramids will remain when the Great Wall
has run to ruin.
At Shan-hai-kuan we found several modem forts constructed
and armed with Krupp guns — a curious contrast to the anti-
quated wall of defence by which they lay. An instructor to
the Chinese in the use of these guns, a German non-commis-
sioned officer, was stationed here. He spoke very disparagingly
about the interest the Chinese took in their duties. It was
impossible, he said, to get them to look after their guns
properly. They could not be made to see the necessity of it,
and costly, highly finished guns were going to ruin for want of
proper care. This defect is seen everywhere in Chinese naval
and military officers.
From here we went to Kaiping. On the way we passed
cart after cart laden with coffins, and with a cock in a cage at
the top of each. A Chinaman dislikes being buried outside the
Great Wall, and as soon as his relatives can afford it, they bring
him home inside it again. These were the bodies of colonists
Digitized by
Google
i886.] THE FIRST CHINESE RAILWAY. 53
who had died in Manchuria, and were being brought back to
their homes again. The cock was intended, by his crowing,
to keep the spirit awake while passing through the Great Wall ;
otherwise, it was feared, the spirit might go wandering off
somewhere and forget the body, and the body might be brought
in and the spirit left behind.
As we neared Kaiping we were surprised to see two British
navvies walking along the road, and there was not the slightest
mistake who they were, for as we passed, one said to the other,
"I wonder who the that is, Bill?" They were
miners employed in the colliery at this place. The Kaiping
coal-mine was in the charge of Mr Kinder, who very kindly
gave us a room for the night, and the next day showed us
round the mine. At the time of our visit it was nine hundred
feet deep, and could turn out five hundred tons of coal a
day. Now, however, it can turn out its thousand or one
thousand five hundred tons without difficulty. Mr. Kinder,
who is still in charge, is a man of surprising energy and
enterprise. Employed by a Chinese company, over whom,
however, I fancy, he has a considerable influence, he first of
all got this coal-mine into working order. Then he ran a small
tramway down the coast, for the purpose of carrying the coals
to a port The waggons on this were at first drawn by ponies,
but after a time Mr. Kinder made up a little engine, which he
called the " Rocket," to do the work. This engine he showed
us with great pride. It was entirely constructed by himself
on the spot, and the only parts which had been imported were
the wheels, which had been brought from Hong-kong— the
remnants of an old tramway service. The Chinese had been
afraid of a whole engine being imported by a " foreign devil,"
but a machine made on the spot aroused no fears. In the
course of time another more powerful engine was made and
the tramway enlai^ed. Then, as the Chinese grew accustomed
to seeing steam-engines, Mr. Kinder was able to introduce the
Digitized by
Google
54 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. hi.
idea of having engines from abroad instead of making inferior
ones on the spot. The ice had been broken. The first
prejudice had been overcome, and railways in China had been
started. Engines, rolling-stock, and rails were now imported,
and a railway towards Tientsin was commenced. This, Mr.
Kinder, with only one European assistant to supervise the
mine, was now constructing. A year or two afterwards it.
reached Tientsin, and has now been extended eastward to
Shan-hai-kuan. Its extension to Manchuria will be the next
move, and then the whole of that magnificently rich country
will be opened up. If any one deserves the credit of having
introduced railways into China, I think Mr. Kinder must be
the man.
Mr. Kinder had many stories of his intercourse with Chinese
which amused us. He was called at one time before some
very high Manchu prince who had never seen a European.
The prince eyed the Englishman suspiciously for a time, and
then began stroking him down, at the same time saying that
the gentleman was quite tame, and did not apparently bite nor
kick. He had been made to believe that Europeans really
were, as they are always called by the Chinese, devils, and he
had expected to find a sort of wild animal brought before him.
This is one of the prejudices a European, dealing with the
Chinese, has to overcome.
Another sort of prejudice which often stood very much in
Mn Kinder's way, was that of " Feng-shuL" This is a prejudice
connected with the spirit world. The living, the Chinese
consider, must conform to certain rules, or the evil spirits will
enter the house, and harm will come to all connected with it.
A stranger in China is surprised to notice a wall, ten, twenty,
or fifty yards long, according to the size of the house, placed a
few yards off straight in front of the gateway. This wall
stands out by itself, and fulfils no apparent object. It is really
intended to prevent evil spirits entering the houses. Evil
Digitized by
Google
188;.] '' FENG'SHUI'' — TIENTSIN. 55
spirits, according to the Chinese, can only go straight ahead ;
they cannot turn a comer. So if a wall is built straight in
front of the gateway, the spirits run up against that and are
unable to enter the house. This is only one instance of the
superstition of Feng-shuL It has many similar prejudices with
which the construction of a railway through the country was
likely to interfere. For instance, it was objected by the
Chinese, that if the railway was raised the spirits might go
along the top of the carriages and look down into their houses.
"But then," said Mr. Kinder, "just look at the embankment
and think how many devils that will keep out, running for miles
and miles as it does, right in front of your doorways." Much of
this sort of diplomacy was needed to overcome prejudice after
prejudice, but Mr. Kinder was as good at diplomacy as he was
at engineering, and railways in China are now an accomplished
fact
From Kaiping we proceeded to Tientsin, passing over a
dead level plain, and reaching that place on New Year's Day,
1887. The Peiho river had just been frozen over, and steamer
communication with the south was blocked till the spring.
At Tientsin I was very hospitably entertained by the consul,
Mr. Byron Brenan, and his wife, with whom Mr. James and I
had stopped on our previous visit There is generally plenty
going on in the little foreign community at Tientsin, and
besides a mounted paper-chase, organized by the French, we
had ice-boat sailing and skating. The ice-boat was a great
attraction, and with full sails set we went skimming along at
a good thirty miles an hour over the flooded plains. This
ice-boat was built upon runners like magnified skates, it had
sails like a yacht, and of course a rudder. The pace was
tremendous, for there is little friction and no resistance such
as a ship has to encounter at sea. For the same reason it
could be turned in an instant in any direction, and the only
difficulty was to keep a firm enough hold as the boat whisked
Digitized by
Google
56 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, iiu
round. On one occasion a lady did not do so, and was sent
off at a tangent, skimming gracefully along over the ice in
one direction, while the boat went off thirty miles an hour in
another ! Any other form of yachting is tame in comparison
with this ice-boat sailing, and its only disadvantage is the
cold. Flying through the air with the thermometer not far
off zero is very cold work, and necessitates good heavy furs.
During my stay in Tientsin, the Russian New Year fell,
and Mr. Brenan took me a round of visits to the Russian
consul and the Russian merchants in the place. With them
the New Year is observed with great ceremony. At each
house we found substantial refreshment laid out on a side-
table, and were pressed to drink good luck to the coming year
in champagne. The Russians in Tientsin are mostly tea-
merchants, and some of them are extremely rich, and live in
very luxuriously furnished houses. They all of them had that
warm, hearty, cordial manner which is the characteristic of
Russians.
After this I went on to Peking, and was entertained in
the British Legation, first by Mr. Walter Hillier, then Chinese
Secretary, now Consul-General in Corea, and afterwards by
Sir John and Lady Walsham. I trespassed far too long on
their hospitality, but they were so kind in their reception of
me, and it was such a relief to be settled in comfortable home-
like surroundings after the rough life I had been leading, that
I was unable to break myself away till the spring had come
on, and so I was with them for nearly three months. And
here, of course, I learnt a great deal about the Chinese which
I should certainly never have been able to learn by myself.
Mr. Hillier was known to be a fine Chinese scholar, and to
have a very intimate knowledge of the Chinese. Conversations
with him were therefore especially interesting, and in my
subsequent journeys I was able to profit much by the advice
he gave me.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] PEKING. sr
Peking has been described so often that it is unnecessary
to do so once more. The only striking things about it are
the size of its walls and its gateways, the filth of its streets,
and the utter disregard for decency of its inhabitants. One
could not stir outside the Legation without going through the
most disgusting filth, and the practical result of this is, that
the members of the foreign legations go out as little as possible.
They entertain among themselves, though, very considerably,
and during the winter there was a constant succession of dinner-
parties and dances, and every afternoon we used to meet at
the skating-rink, a covered-in enclosure with natural ice, flooded
over and frozen fresh every day. The British Legation enter-
tainments were of course very brilliant, for the house is an old
palace with unusually large, fine, well-decorated rooms, and
these Lady Walsham had just had newly furnished from home.
At an entertainment there, surrounded with the most beautiful
furniture, and every sort of modern comfort, and with people
of every European nationality talking around one, it was hard
to realize that this was all in the very capital of one of the
most seclusive countries in the world, and that it is only in*
the last thirty of the three thousand years during which the
Chinese Empire has existed that such a thing has beea
possible.
Digitized by
Google
58 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. iv.
CHAPTER IV.
PEKING TO KWEI-HWA-CHENG.
" And o'er him many changing scenes must roll,
Ere toil his thirst for trayel can assnage."
While I was waiting in Peking, news arrived that Colonel
M. S. Bell, V.C., of the Royal Engineers, was to come there and
travel straight through to India. I knew Colonel Bell, having
served under him in the Intelligence Department in India,
so I immediately decided upon asking him to allow me to
accompany him. Here was the opportunity for which I had
longed. Here was a chance of visiting that hazy mysterious
land beyond the Himalayas, and actually seeing Kashgar and
Yarkand, with whose names I had been acquainted since I
was a boy through letters from my uncle, Robert Shaw. A
journey overland to India would take us through the entire
length of Chinese Turkestan, the condition of which was still
unknown since the Chinese had re-conquered it by one of
those long-sustained efforts for which they are so remarkable.
We should be able to see these secluded people of Central
Asia, dim figures of whom I had pictured in my mind
from reading the accounts of the few travellers who had been
amongst them. Then, too, there was the fascination of seeing
the very heart of the Himalayas, as we should have to cross
their entire breadth on the way to India. And all combined
was one grand project — this idea of striking boldly out from
Peking to penetrate to India — that of itself inspired enthusiasm
Digitized by
Google
i887.] PREPARATIONS FOR A LONG JOURNEY. 59
and roused every spark of exploring ardour la me. No
excitement I have ever experienced has come up to that of
planning out a great journey. The only drawback in such a
life is the subsequent reaction when all is over, and the
monotonous round of ordinary existence oppresses one by its
torpidity and flatness in comparison. The project before me
was a journey in length nearly as great as one across Central
Africa and back again, and, to me at least, far more interesting
than any African travel — a journey through countries varying
from the level wastes of the Gobi desert, to the snow-clad
masses of the Himalayas ; passing, moreover, through the
entire length of an empire with a history of three thousand
years, and still fresh in interest to the present day. And
with the chance of making such a journey, who could help
feeling all the ardent excitement of travel rising in him, and
long to be started on it
Colonel Bell arrived in Peking towards the end of March,
and said he would be only too glad to allow me to accompany
him ; but he thought that it would be rather a waste of energy
for two officers to travel together, so we arranged to follow
diflTerent routes.
There were, of course, some initial difficulties to be overcome
— the chief one being leave of absence from my regiment But
Sir John Walsham, for whose kindness on this occasion I could
never feel too grateful, overcame this by telegraphing direct
to Lord Dufferin, and that difficulty — generally the greatest
which military explorers have to encounter — ^was at once
removed.
The telegram having been despatched. Colonel Bell and I
spread out our maps and discussed operations. He was anxious
to see the populous parts of China, so decided upon going
through the provinces inside of the Great Wall to Kansu, and
then striking across the Gobi desert to Hami, following
throughout the main route between Peking and Chinese
Digitized by
Google
6o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. iv.
Turkestan. To my lot fell the newer and more purely
exploring work, and it was determined that I should follow
the direct road across the Gobi desert, and, if possible, meet
Colonel Bell at Hami * Colonel Bell then left Peking, after
fixing a date on which we should meet at Hami, and my friends
in the Legation said that, judging from the general style of
his movements, they thought it extremely improbable that
he would wait for me there more than three-quarters of an
hour. As it turned out, we never met again till we arrived
in India, and then Colonel Bell told me that he really had
waited for me a whole day in Hami — this place in the middle
of Central Asia, nearly two thousand miles from our starting-
point — and, astonished at finding I had not turned up to date,^
had proceeded on his way to India.
Meanwhile, I had to remain in Peking to await the reply
of the telegram to the Viceroy, and occupy myself in sundry
preparations and in the search for an interpreter. A favourable
reply arrived, and then Sir John Walsham, with his usual
kindness, interested himself in procuring for me the best pass-
port it was possible to obtain from the Chinese, and that having
been obtained, April 4, 1887, was fixed as the date of my
departure from Peking.
The evening preceding my departure was one which it
will be hard indeed to forget, and I think I realized then for
the first time clearly what I was undertaking. Lady Walsham
asked me after dinner to mark on a map for her the route
I proposed to follow, and to tell her exactly what I hoped to-
do. Then, as I traced out a pencil line along the map of
Asia, I first seemed to appreciate the task I had before me.
Everything was so vague. Nowhere in Peking had we been
* This route had never previously, nor, as far as I am aware, has it since been,,
traversed by a European. It lies midway between the high-road to Chinese
Tarkestan and the route which Mr. Ney Elias followed in 1872 on his way from
Peking to Siberia, and for the exploration of which he obtained the Gold Medal of
the Royal Geographical Society.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] START FROM PEKING. 6i
able to obtain information about the road across the desert.
I had never been in a desert, and here were a thousand miles
or so of one to be crossed. Nor had we any information of the
state of the country on the other side of the desert It was
held by the Chinese, we knew, but how held, what sort of order
was preserved in the country, and how a solitary European
traveller would be likely to fare among the people, we knew
not. Lastly, at the back of all, looming darkly in the extremest
distance, were the Himalayas, to cross which had previously
been considered a journey in itself.
All the terrible vagueness and uncertainty of everything
impressed itself on me as I traced that pencil line on the map.
It was a real plunge into the unknown I was about to make,
and, however easy the route might afterwards prove to future
travellers, I felt that it was this first plunging in that was
the true difficulty in the matter. Had but one traveller gone
through before me; had I even now with me a companion
upon whom I could rely, or one good servant whom I could
trust to stand by me, the task would have seemed easy in
comparison. But all was utterly dark before me, and the
journey was to be made alone with the Chinese servant whom
I had found in Peking.
That last night in safety and civilization all these difficulties
and uncertainties weighed heavily upon me. But with the
morning they were forgotten, and they never troubled me
again. The start was to be made, and the real excitement
beg^n, and an unalterable conviction came over me that some-
how or other I should find myself in India in a few months'
time.
Sir John and Lady Walsham and all the members of the
Legation collected at the gateway to bid me good-bye, and,
as they did so, I tried to thank them for all the many kind-
nesses they had shown me, and for the good-will and interest
they had taken in my plans. There are many things one
Digitized by
Google
62 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. iv.
looks back to on a journey, but few things cheered me so
much in my more dejected moments as the vivid recollection
I used to keep of what I felt were the sincerely meant good
wishes of the friends I was just leaving.
Then I rode out of the gateway and beyond the walls of
Peking, and was fairly launched on my journey. Just a few
pangs of depression and a few spectres of difficulties appeared
at first, and then they vanished for good ; and, as the hard
realities of the journey began to make themselves felt, I
braced myself up and prepared to face whatever might occur
without thinking of what was behind.
With me at starting was one Chinese servant who had
accompanied Mr. James through Manchuria, and who was to
act as interpreter, but who afterwards gave up when we came
to the edge of the desert ; and a second, Liu-san, who eventually
travelled with me the whole way to India, acting in turn as
interpreter, cook, table-servant, groom, and carter. He served
me well and faithfully, and he was always hard-working and
willing to face the difficulties of the road. And when I think
of all that depended on this, my single servant and companion,
I cannot feel too grateful for the fidelity he showed in accom-
panying me.
For the first two weeks, as far as Kwei-hwa-cheng, the
baggage was carried in carts, while I rode. The day after
leaving Peking we passed through the inner branch of the
Great Wall at the Nankon gate, and a couple of days later
at Kalgan I saw the outer branch. It is a wonderful sight,
this Great Wall of China. I had previously seen it at its
commencement in the sea at Shan-hai-kuan,* and I passed
through it again a march or two west of Kalgan. When I
passed through it at this spot, it had dwindled down to very
insignificant proportions. I describe it in my diary as a
"miserable structure, bearing no resemblance to the gigantic
♦ See above, p. 51.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] AN AMERICAN MEDICAL MISSION. 63
edifice near Peking. It is about twenty feet high, made of
mud, crumbh'ng to pieces, and with large gaps. At intervals
of from half a mile to a mile there are mud-built towers."
At Kalgan I found a little missionary colony of Americans,
among whom Mr. Sprague was most kind in giving me assist-
ance and trying to obtain information about this route across
the desert from Kwei-hwa-cheng which I would have to follow.
Besides Mr. Sprague, there was Mr. Williams and two lady
doctor missionaries. Miss Diament and Miss Murdock, who
seemed to me to do much good. A medical missionary has
a great pull. He (in this case she) can show charity and good-
will in a clear, tangible, practical form, which is, generally
speaking, much appreciated. These lady doctors appeared to
go in specially for opium cures. They, like most of the
missionaries one meets in China, had a great deal to say against
the habit of opium-smoking, and described very vividly its evil
consequences and the difficulty of getting rid of the habit when
once acquired. This, in fact, seems to be one of the gjreatest
objections to it. A man who has once acquired the habit
cannot get out of it. Miss Murdock described to me how men
affected in this way used to come and implore her to cure
them ; but her only effectual method was to confine them.
She would make them pay for their food, and also produce
a surety who would be responsible, if the patient died, for the
removal of the body. In this stern way she had effected many
cures, though she was disappointed at times in finding her
patient going back to the habit again when temptation was
thrown in his way.
M. Ivanoff, a Russian tea-merchant, was another of the
Europeans I met at Kalgan. It is always a pleasure to meet
a Russian. He is invariably so frank and hearty. No one
would ever accuse a Russian of not being warm-hearted, and
to a stranger in a strange land this Russian merchant was
particularly so. He at once produced maps and books to
Digitized by
Google
^64 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. iv.
look up information for me, and insisted upon presenting me
with a new map, and a particularly good one, which was
afterwards of the utmost service to me. I like to record these
little acts of kindness and consideration which I have received
from Russians individually, because I believe there are no two
nations that would take to each other more than the Russians
and ourselves, if the opportunity were forthcoming, and the
more the members of each nation know each other the better
it would be for us both.
Another of the acquaintances I made at Kalgan was the
^x-captain of a Chinese gunboat which had been engaged in
the action at Foochow during the Franco-Chinese war. His
was a curious story. The Chinese have a principle that in a
battle a commander must either be victorious or else die.
This man's vessel had been moored at some distance from the
French fleet, and had consequently escaped the fate of the
rest of the Chinese ships, and had not been blown out of
the water. The captain, seeing the day was lost, and not
being able to do anything to retrieve the disaster with his little
-gunboat, had run ashore and escaped. The Chinese Emperor,
however, considered this a most ignominious proceeding. If
the French had not killed him, he ought to have killed himself,
and, as he had not done so, he was ordered into exile for life
to the Mongolian border, and told to think himself fortunate
that he had not been executed. And here the poor little
gentleman was — very sore against his own government, but
•lively and cheery withal, and certainly most useful to me.
He used to accompany me for hours through the bazaars,
trying to get things which I wanted, or to obtain information
about the road.
Kalgan has some very good shops, and I even bought a
watch there. It does an immense trade with the Mongols,
and with the caravans which start from there northwards across
the desert to Siberia. But even here we could learn nothing
Digitized by
Google
1887.] IN THE YANG-HO VALLEY. 65
about the route across the desert from Kwei-hwa-cheng. It
is extraordinary how devoid the Chinese are of anything like
an instinct for geography. Anything beyond a man's own
town or the road he works on has no interest for him, and
he knows nothing of. Caravans start regularly from Kwei-
hwa-cheng across the desert to Hami. Kwei-hwa-cheng is only
a week's journey from Kalgan, and Kalgan is a great trading
centre, and yet nowhere in the place was information to be
obtained of the route by which we had to go. How different
all this is from what one sees in the bazaars of Central Asia,
where the merchants — some from India, some from Turkestan,
some from Afghanistan — meet and talk over the countries
they have travelled over and the state of the roads, and
where a traveller can always obtain a fair general idea of any
caravan route now in use !
A feature of travelling in China is the elaborate agreement
which has to be made with the carters. Before leaving Peking,
Mr. Hillier, who in such matters was one of the most obliging
and careful men I have met, had drawn up a document which
appeared as comprehensive as a royal proclamation or a
lawyer's deed. But even in that the carters found a flaw,
and Mr. Sprague informed me that unless I paid some more
money they would not land me on the date mentioned. So
this was rectified, and on April 10 I started from Kalgan.
We now left the great caravan route from Peking to Siberia,
and ascended the broad valley of the Yang-ho. Here each
village was walled, and towers were scattered over the country
— speaking of troublous times and predatory bands. The
fields were poorly cultivated, and the people less well-to-do.
Although we were well into April, the weather was still cold,
and streams were covered with ice in the morning. No leaves
were on the trees yet, and, although I was wearing a leather
coat, cardigan jacket, flannel shirt, and vest, I still felt it
cold riding along beside the carts.
F
Digitized by
Google
66 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. iv.
We used, too, to have very cold winds blowing from the
northward — from the direction of the high plateau of Mongolia.
These blew with great force, and clouds of gritty, sandy dust
from the desert and from the bare hill ranges which border
it were carried along with them. This well accounts for the
dull, hazy atmosphere so common at Peking, which is seen
also in Chinese Turkestan. It was this wind which had pro-
duced the loess formation, which is met with in many parts
of Northern China. It carries down all the dust of the desert
and deposits it layer upon layer, till in some places it reaches
a thickness of several hundred feet upon the plains of China.
Counter winds meet the desert wind, and from that and other
causes it is brought to a standstill, and down fall the particles
of dust it has been hurrying along with it on to the ground
below. In this way large tracts of China to the south of
the desert are covered with the loess formation. It makes a
light, very friable kind of soil, which crumbles away on the
least pressure being put on it, and has a tendency to cleave
vertically. In consequence of this, the roads through a loess
formation present a very remarkable appearance. A cart
passes over the loess. The soil breaks away, the wind blows
off the dust thus formed, and a deep track is the result.
Other carts follow, more loess is broken up, more dust blown
away, the track gets deeper and deeper, till in the course of
centuries a road is made one or two hundred feet below the
level of the surrounding country; and this road is bounded
on each side by perpendicular cliffs, for, as mentioned above,
the loess has a vertical cleavage.
In the valley of the Yang-ho, which we were now ascending,
we passed along roads of this description. They are only
wide enough for the passage of one cart, and consequently,
before entering the defile, we had to send on a man to shout
and stop any cart coming from the opposite direction.
Donkeys I note as having been particularly fine in this
Digitized by
Google
i887.] ON THE MONGOLIAN PLAIN. 67
district ; but a circumstance that struck me very much in
North China was, that the mules produced by a cross between
the donkeys and ponies of the country are very much larger
than either. In Peking one used to see magnificent mules
in the carts belonging to the high officiala I was told that
from fifty to a hundred pounds were sometimes given for
the highest class of mules ; and these animals were frequently
14*2 to 15 hands in height, and fully a hand or a hand and
a half higher than the ponies they were bred from.
On April 12 we passed through the Great Wall, and
entered what Marco Polo calls the land of Gog and Magog.
The gate of the Great Wall was not imposing, consisting as
it did merely of a rough framework of wood, near which
was a low hut, in which dwelt a mandarin with a small guard,
and in front of which were two small cannons fastened on
to a piece of timber. On either side of the gateway were large
gaps in the wall — ^here only of mud — which carts or an)^hing
else might pass through.
On the 14th, after starting at three in the morning, we
emerged on to the broad, open plain of Mongolia proper. It
was a lovely morning, with a faint blue haze over the low hills,
which edged the plain on each side and in the far distance ;
and an extraordinary bounding sense of freedom came over
me as I looked on that vast grassy plain, stretching away
in apparently illimitable distance all round. There was no
let or hindrance — one could go anywhere, it seemed, and all
nature looked bright, as if enticing us to go on. We were
on a rolling plain of grass. Here and there in the distance
could be seen collections of small dots, which, as we came
nearer, proved to be herds of camels and cattle. Numbers
of larks rose on every side and brightened the morning with
their singing. Small herds of deer were frequently met with ;
bustard too were seen, while numbers of geese and duck were
passing overhead in their flight northward.
Digitized by
Google
68 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. iv.
Away across the plains we had seen some black spots
with faint columns of blue smoke rising from them in the
morning air. These were the yurts, or felt tents, of the
Mongols, towards which we were making. On reaching them
I found them to be very much what books of travel had led
me to expect — dome-shaped, with a hole in the roof, made
of a framework of lattice, with felt bound round on the outside*
The inhabitants of one of them made room for me. A felt
was spread out to He on, and a couple of small tables placed
by my side. All round the sides of the tent boxes and cup-
boards were neatly arranged, and at one end were some vases
and images of Buddha. In the centre was the fireplace, situated
directly beneath the hole in the roof I was charmed with
the comfort of the place. The Chinese inns, at which I had
so far had to put up, were cold and draughty. Here the sun
came streaming in through the hole in the top, and there
were no draughts whatever. There was no dust either; and
this being the tent of a well-to-do Mongol, it was clean and
neatly arranged.
The whole family collected to see my things, and pulled
my kit to pieces. The sponge was a great source of wonder ;
but what attracted them most of all was a concave shaving-
mirror, which magnified and contorted the face in a marvellous
way. They shrieked with laughter at it, and made the young
girls look at their faces in it, telling them they need not be
proud of their good looks, as that was what they were really
like.
It was a pleasure getting among these jolly, round-faced,
ruddy-cheeked Mongols, .after living amongst the unhealthy-
looking Chinese of the country we had been travelling through
lately, who showed little friendliness or good-humour, and
always seemed to cause a bad taste in the mouth. These
first Mongols whom I met happened to be an unusually
attractive lot. They were, of course, better off than those whom
Digitized by
Google
188;.] CHINESE MONGOLS. 69
I afterwards met with far away in the desert, and this perhaps
accounted for their ever-cheery nnanner, which left such an
agreeable impression on me.
Another attraction of this first day in Mongolia was the
milk and cream — ^thick and rich as one could get anywhere;
and here, again, was a pleasing contrast to China, where, as
I have said, the cows are never milked, and none is therefore
procurable.
Altogether this was one of those bright days which throw
all the hardships of travel far away into the shade, and make
the traveller feel that the net result of all is the highest
enjoyment The shadows have only served to show up the
light, and bring out more clearly the attractions of a free,
roaming life.
On the following day we entered some hilly country again.
On the road we saw some partridges, which allowed the carter
to walk right up to them so that he was able to hit one
with his whip, and even then the others did not go, till they
also were hit with the whip. At the end of the march we
came upon country cultivated by Chinamen, who here, as
nearly all along the borders of Mongolia, are encroaching
on the Mongols, and gradually driving them out of the best
country back to the desert. The slack, easy-going Mongol
cannot stand before the pushing, industrious Chinaman ; so
back and back he goes. It is the old story which is seen
all through nature— the weak and lazy succumbing to the
strong and vigorous. The observer's sympathies are all with
the Mongol, though, and he feels regret at seeing the cold,
hard-natured Chinaman taking the place of the open-hearted
Mongol.
A point to be noticed at this time of year was the rapid
changes of temperature. It may be quite mild in the morning,
with a soft balmy feeling in the air. Then suddenly a bitter
wind will spring up, and the thermometer will instantly fall
Digitized by
Google
70 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. iv.
ten degrees. The inhabitants appeared to suffer much from
this cause, and fevers and sickness are common at this season.
As we neared Kwei-hwa-cheng, which we reached on April
17, the country became more and more thickly populated —
entirely with Chinamen, though, properly speaking, the district
is part of Mongolia — and an increasing amount of traffic was
met with on the roads. Numbers of the small description of
carts were seen, crammed full of goods inside and out, and
frequently carrying as much as .1000 catties (1380 lbs.), and the
long heavy carts laden with hides. The number of Tungles
was also noticeable, and sometimes in the hills would be seen
the cave-houses cut into the loess.
On arrival at Kwei-hwa-cheng, I called on Mr. and Mrs. G. W.
Clarke of the China Inland Mission, to whom I had a letter
of introduction. I met with that warm reception which is
characteristic of missionaries ; a room was prepared for me, and
the most real hospitality shown me. Mr. Clarke had been
established here for two years now, and was, I believe, the first
permanent missionary to reside in the place. I had not before
met a member of the China Inland Mission in his home, and
consequently was especially interested in hearing Mr. Clarke's
account of his work. The zeal and energy which this mission
shows is marvellous. Its members dress as Chinamen, live
right away in the interior, in the very heart of China, and make
it their endeavour to get really in touch with the people. They
receive no regular pay, but as money comes in to the mission,
enough is sent them to cover the bare expenses of living. Often,
through the lack of funds, they are on the point of starving,
and Mrs. Clarke told me how, upon one occasion, she had been
for two or three weeks with literally no money and no food, so
that she had to beg her way and sell her clothes to raise money
as best she could till funds arrived from head-quarters.
The mission takes in laymen, as well as ordained ministers,
and followers of varying persuasions ; and there is an excellent
Digitized by
Google
188;.] HOJV CHINESE TROOPS ARE LEVIED. 71
rule that, for a year or two after coming to China, the recruits
need not belong permanently to the mission ; but, if they find
that they are not suited for the work, can return to England.
The wisdom of this rule any one can readily understand, who
has seen what work in the interior of China really means, and
how different it is from any conception of it which can be
formed in England. It must be a stern, true heart indeed
which can stand the dreary years spent almost — sometimes
quite — alone in a remote Chinese town, far away from all the
glamour and catching enthusiasm of a missionary meeting at
home, and surrounded by cold-blooded, unemotional Chinamen
who by instinct hate you. No comfort about you, nothing but
what you have within you to keep up your enthusiasm ; but, on
the contrary, everything to quench it To keep up your work
under these circumstances, you must have an inexhaustible
fund of zeal within you. And it is because the directors of
the mission recognize that many who come out raw from
England cannot have such a vast reserve of zeal, that they
have wisely given every one the chance of returning. Another
good principle, as I learnt from Mr. Clarke, was laid down by
Mr. Hudson Taylor, the founder and director of the mission —
not to appeal to the British minister or consul for assistance,
except when it was absolutely necessary.
Mr. Clarke had travelled for sixteen thousand miles in China
during his long sojourn as a missionary in that country, and
had resided in nearly every part of it. During the Franco-
Chinese war he was in Yunan, and he gave me some amusing
details of the way in which troops were raised there. When
the nation is at war, one would naturally suppose the standing
army would be used first. But the Chinese in this, as in most
other things, do precisely the opposite to every one else. The
regulars said, '* We must not go away from our town to fight.
Our business is to defend the town. If any one attacks that,
we will keep it to the last, but we must not leave it" So when
Digitized by
Google
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. iv.
the Chinese had to fight the French in Tonquin, they were
obliged to send out to the farms and villages, offering men
who would fight rather higher wages than they would get in
ordinary civil life. In this way the generals of a district would
raise a certain number of men, say a couple of thousand. These
would be sent off to the war under four colonels, who would
receive from government the pay for each man. But the
colonels had to feather their nests, so they would give a certain
number of men a premium to go off home again, and then they
(the colonels) would go on drawing the pay of the absentees
from government, and put it all into their own pockets. Thus,
out of the two thousand who were originally sent off, probably
about one thousand only would reach the seat of war, while the
colonels would pocket the pay of the other thousand. So there
were not half the number of troops in Tonquin that were re-
ported to have been there.
Then the numbers of the French troops which Chinese
generals reported to Peking as having been opposed to them
is marvellous. I had an opportunity once of reading, side by
side, the despatches of the Chinese commander (published in
the Peking Gazette) and the despatches of the French general
(published by the French Government) about the same battles.
It was most instructive reading. The Chinese reported to the
emperor, and the emperor, I suppose, solemnly believed, that
the French had from ten to twenty times the number they
really had ; and the slaughter these gallant Chinese soldiers
effected beats everything previously recorded in history.
According to the Peking Gazette^ no less than 1,800,000 French-
men were actually killed in the Tonquin war ; and, according
to the same authority. Admiral Courbet was killed on forty-six
separate occasions.
While our preparations were in progress, Mr. Clarke and I
took many walks through Kwei-hwa-cheng. It is a curious
town and seems to have outgrown itself on two separate
Digitized by
Google
1887.] KWEI'HWA'CHENG. 73
occasions. Originally enclosed within walls about three hundred
yards square, which are still remaining, it outgrew these, and
an outer wall was built all round about a mile square. This
also it outgrew, and large numbers of houses have been built
beyond the second wall. At the time of my visit, however, the
population was falling off, and the place was losing a great deal
of its former importance as a dep6t of trade with Mongolia.
Mr. Clarke said that there were two reasons for this: firstly,
because the tea, which used formerly to be brought up from
Hankow to this place, and then taken across the Gobi desert to
Kiakhta, is now carried by steamers to Tientsin, and thence
by Kalgan to Kiakhta and Siberia ; and, secondly, because
the war in Kashgaria and the Tungan rebellion had almost
stopped trade for some years, and it had never since
revived.
Kwei-hwa-cheng used originally to be a Mongol town. It is
even now included in Mongolia, and there is a Mongol prince
resident in the place ; but no one would believe that it was not
Chinese, for it is occupied almost exclusively by Chinamen, and
the Mongols are relegated to the outskirts. There are, however,
some fine Buddhist temples and a large number of Mongol
lamas in the city. These, Mr. Clarke says, are much less sincere
in their Buddhism than the Chinese Buddhist priests. Neither
ought, strictly speaking, to eat meat, and the Chinese priests as
a rule do not ; but the Mongols have more lax ideas, and are
not above eating flesh occasionally. The scene in the Mongol
bazaar, on the north side of the inner city, is very interesting.
Here are seen the weather-beaten, ruddy-faced Mongols from
the desert, with their huge foxskin caps and dirty sheepskin
coats, coming in to buy a few necessaries, which they are unable,
or rather too lazy, to make for themselves, and they bargain at
the stalls, with the astute Chinese stall-keepers, for leather
boots, whips, pipes, caps, and various other things. And there
are the Chinese caravan-men buying up requisites for marching
Digitized by
Google
74 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. iv.
in the desert — camel pack-saddles, water-casks, sacks for pro-
visions, ropes, and all the odds and ends which have to be
taken. Apart from their general sunburnt and weather-beaten
appearance, there is an unmistakable look about these caravan-
men by which they can always be distinguished. They invariably
have a peculiar slouch, a bend-over from the hips, and a stoop
about the shoulders, acquired from riding night after night
during those long dreary desert marches, bent over on the back
of a camel, or trudging along by their side in the listless, half-
sleepy way one cannot help indulging in on those monotonous
plains.
The retail trade of Kwei-hwa-cheng seems to be almost
entirely in articles required by travellers and by the Mongols.
Good coal is obtainable within two days.
Preparations for crossing the Gobi desert to Hami had now
to be made. Kwei-hwa-cheng was the last town in this direction,
and the starting-point of caravans for Eastern Turkestan.
Carts, or rather the mules or ponies which drew them, could
go no further, so I had to discharge them and look out for
camels. Sallying forth to the town on the day after my arrival,
I went with Mr. Clarke to visit the establishment of one of the
great firms which trade with Turkestan. Here in the yards
we saw rows of neatly bound loads of merchandise, brick tea,
cotton goods, silk, china, and ironmongery, all being made
up ready for a caravan which was about to start for Guchen, a
town some seven marches beyond Hami in the direction of
Kulja. Full information about the route was now at last forth-
coming, and I looked with the profoundest interest on men who
had actually been to these mist-like towns of Central Asia. It
appeared that there was a recognized route across the desert,
and that during the winter months a caravan would start about
once a month. But Guchen was the place to which the caravans
ordinarily went, and Hami was only occasionally visited by
them. The road to the latter place branched off at about ten
Digitized by
Google
1887-] PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE DESERT. 7?
marches from Hami. We were told that these caravans took
from eighty to ninety days to reach Guchen, and some ten days
less to Hami. Dried apricots from Hami and raisins from
Turfan were apparently all that was brought back in return
from Turkestan. The ordinary charge for carriage from Kwei-
hwa-cheng to Guchen, I was told, was 16 taels (about £/^ for
a camel-load of 240 lbs. This track across the desert is, how-
ever, only used for merchants' caravans, and the official track
from Kwei-hwa-cheng to Hami is by Uliasutai and Kobdo, the
one followed by Mr. Ney Elias in 1872. Soldiers returning
from Zungaria do so by Kiakhta and across the Gobi to
Kalgan.
We did not at first succeed in finding a man who was
willing to hire out camels to go on such a long journey with
so small a party as ours would be. Men had no objection to
travelling in large caravans, but they did not like the idea of
starting across the desert with a party of only four. But I
could not wait for the caravan which was about to start By
doing so I might be detained in one way and another for some
weeks, and as I had the whole length of Chinese Turkestan to
traverse, and to cross the Himalayas before winter closed in, I
could not afford such a delay. It was fortunate for me that at
this juncture I had the aid and experience of Mr. Clarke at my
disposal. He was indefatigable in his search for a man, and
eventually found a Chinese native of Guchen who undertook
to hire me out five camels, to carry 300 lbs. each, for 180
taels (about ;f45), and to provide a guide to accompany my
party across the desert to Hami. A solemn agreement was
then drawn up, and it was stipulated that, for the above sum,
we were to be landed at Hami in sixty days.
To consult a Chinese almanac for an auspicious day on
which to start was the next thing to be done. The guide was
very particular about this, as he said it would never do to start
in a casual way on a journey like this. We must be most
Digitized by
Google
76 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, i v.
careful about the date of starting. The 23rd, 24th, and 25th
of April were all in turn rejected, for one reason after another,
and the 26th was finally settled upon as being suitable in all
respects.
In the meanwhile there was plenty of work to be done,
laying in provisions and providing ourselves with every possible
necessary. Nothing would be procurable on the way except
perhaps a sheep here and there, so we had to buy up supplies
of all kinds sufficient to last the party for two months. Some
people think that on a journey it is absolutely necessary to make
themselves as uncomfortable as possible. But I had learnt by
experience to think otherwise, and determined to treat myself
as well as circumstances would permit, so that, when it should
become really necessary to rough it (as it afterwards did during
the passage of the Himalayas), I should be fit and able to do
it. So, besides a couple of sacks of flour, a sack of rice, and
thirty tins of beef, which were to be our main stand-by, I had
also brought from Peking such luxuries as a few tins of pre-
served milk, butter, and soup ; and here in Kwei-hwa-cheng I
procured some dried apricots and raisins, a sack of Mongolian
mushrooms, which gave a most excellent relish to the soup,
another sack of potatoes, a bag of dried beans, which Mr. Clarke
gave me, and lastly some oatmeal. All these luxuries added
very little really to the total amount of baggage, and even if
they had made an extra camel-load, it would not have hindered
the journey in any way, while they added very considerably to
my efficiency.
A tent was made up in the town on what is known in India
as the Kabul pattern ; but, as it afterwards turned out, this was,
for travelling in the desert, about the very worst description of
tent possible. The violent winds so constant there catch the
walls of it and make it almost impossible to keep the tent
standing. What I would recommend for future travellers is a
tent like my guide's, sloping down to the ground at the ends
Digitized by
Google
i887.] My EQUIPMENT. 77
as well as on each side, and with no straight wall anywhere to
catch the wind.
Rather unusual articles of equipment were two water-casks,
which we filled with water daily on the march, so that if, as
sometimes happened, we lost our way and missed the well, or
found It choked with sand, we should always have something
to fall back on.
Digitized by
Google
78 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. v.
CHAPTER V.
ACROSS THE GOBI DESERT.
** But here — above, around, below,
On mountain or on glen,
Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
The weary eye may ken."
Scott.
The auspicious day, April 26, having at length arrived, I
had reluctantly to say good-bye to my kind and hospitable
friends — the last of my countrymen I should see for many a
month to come — and take my plunge into the Gobi and the far
unknown beyond. It was like going for a voyage ; all supplies
were taken, and everything made snug and ready. Ours wa,s
a compact little party — ^the camel-man, who acted as guide, a
Mongol assistant, my Chinese " boy," eight camels, and myself.
Chang-san, the interpreter, had gone back to Peking, feeling
himself unable to face the journey before us, and so I was left
to get on as best I could, in half-English, half-Chinese, with the
boy, Liu-san. The guide was a doubled-up little man, whose
eyes were not generally visible, though they sometimes beamed
out from behind his wrinkles and pierced one like a gimlet.
He was a wonderful man, and possessed a memory worthy of a
student of Stokes. The way in which he remembered where the
wells were, at each march in the desert, was simply marvellous.
He would be fast asleep on the back of a camel, leaning right
over with his head either resting on the camel's hump, or
dangling about beside it, when he would suddenly wake up,
look first at the stars, by which he could tell the time to a
Digitized by
Google
i887.] AN ACCOMPLISHED GUIDE. 79
quarter of an hour, and then at as much of the country as he
could see in the dark. After a time he would turn the camel
off the track a little, and sure enough we would find ourselves
at a well The extraordinary manner in which he kept the
way surpasses anything I know of. As a rule no track at all
could be seen, especially in the sandy districts ; but he used to
lead us somehow or other, generally by the droppings of the
camels of previous caravans, and often by tracks which they
had made, which were so faint that I could not disting^uish
them myself even when pointed out to me. A camel does not
leave much of an impression upon gravel, like a beaten-down
path in a garden ; but the guide, from indications here and there,
managed to make out their tracks even in the dark. Another
curious thing about him was the way he used to go to sleep
walking. His natural mode of progression was by bending
right forward, and this seemed to keep him in motion without
any trouble to himself, and he might be seen mooning along
fast asleep. He had, however, one failing — he was a confirmed
opium-smoker ; directly camp was pitched he would have out
his opium pipe, and he used to smoke off and on till we started
again. I was obliged occasionally to differ in opinion from this
gentleman, as will be seen further on ; but, on the whole, we got
on well together, and my feelings towards him at parting were
more of sorrow than of anger, for he had a hard life of it going
backwards and forwards up and down across the desert almost
continuously for twenty years; and his inveterate habit of
opium-smoking had used up all the savings he ought to have
accumulated after his hard life.
The Mongol assistant, whose name was Ma-te-la, was a
careless, good-natured fellow, always whistling or singing, and
bursting out into roars of laughter at the slightest thing, espe-
cially at any little mishap. He used to think it the best possible
joke if a camel deposited one of my boxes on to the ground
and knocked the lid off. He never ceased wondering at all my
Digitized by
Google
8o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
things, and was as pleased as a child with a new toy when I
gave him an empty corned-beef tin when he left me. That treasure
of an old tin is probably as much prized by his family now as
some jade-bowls which I brought back from Yarkand are by mine.
Poor Ma-te-la had to do a most prodigious amount of work.
He had to walk the whole — or very nearly the whole— of each
march, leading the first camel ; then, after unloading the camels,
and helping to pitch the tents, he would have to scour the
country round for the argals or droppings of camels, which were
generally the only thing we could get for fuel. By about two
in the morning he could probably get some sleep ; but he had
to lie down amongst the camels in order to watch them, and
directly day dawned he would get up and take them off to
graze. This meant wandering for miles and miles over the
plain, as the camels are obliged to pick up a mouthful of scrub,
here and there, where they can, and consequently range over
a considerable extent of ground. He would come into camp
again for a short time for his dinner, and then go off again, and
gradually drive the camels up to be ready for the start ; then
he would have to help to load them, and start off on the march
again. It used to seem to me fearfully hard work for him, but
he never appeared any the worse for it, and was always bright
and cheery. I gave him a mount one day on one of my camels,
but he would never get up again, as he said the guide would
give him no wages if he did.
There were eight camels. I rode one myself, four others
carried my baggage and stores, and my servant rode on the
top of one of these baggage camels ; of the remaining three,
one carried the water, one was laden with brick tea, which is
used in place of money for buying things from the Mongols,
and the third was loaded with the men's things. The total
weight of my baggage, with the two months' stores, servant's
cooking things, camp equipage, etc., was 1416 lbs.
We left Kwei-hwa-cheng by the north gate of the town, and.
Digitized by
Google
18870 MONGOLIAN PASTURE LANDS, Zi
after passing for some five miles over a well-cultivated plain,
began to ascend the great buttress range on to the Mongolian
plateau. This range, called the In-shan, is, as it were, a sup-
port to the highlands of Mongolia, and forms the step up
on to them. Crossing these mountains the following day, we
afterwards entered an undulating hilly country, inhabited
principally by Chinese. Villages were numerous, cart-tracks
led in every direction, and the valleys were well cultivated.
There were also large meadows of good grass, where immense
flocks of sheep were feeding; but I was astonished to see
that, although we were now in Mongolia, the largest and best
flocks were tended by and belonged to Chinese, who have
completely ousted the Mongols in the very thing which,
above all, ought to be their speciality. It is really a fact that
the Chinese come all the way from the province of Shantung
to these Mongolian pasture-lands to fatten sheep for the
Peking market Here is another instance of the manner in
which the pushing and industrious Chinaman is forcing his
way, and gradually driving back the less persevering inhabi-
tants of the country on which he encroaches; and it seems
probable that the Chinese from the south, and the Russians
from the north, will, in course of time, gradually force the poor
Mongols into the depth of the desert
Seeing all these flocks of sheep, it occurred to me that it
might be worth while for some of our merchants to set up a
wool-trade. There is a large amount of excellent grazing
ground in Southern Mongolia, and it would only be a question
whether the cost of carriage to Tientsin would make it possible
to compete with the Australian.
Messrs. G. W. Collins and Co., of Tientsin, have already
set up a trade in camels* wool, which they obtain from this
part of Mongolia through their agent who lives at Kwei-hwa-
cheng. A beautifully soft warm cloth is made from this camel-
wool, than which nothing could be better for wear in winter.
G
Digitized by
Google
82 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
The Mongolian camel * has very long hair in winter, which it
sheds in summer. A few years ago a European merchant
travelled through Southern Mongolia and established a trade
in this wool, so that now the Mongols and Chinese caravan-
men save it up instead of wasting it, as formerly, and bring
it in for sale at Kwei-hwa-cheng.
I was warned to look out for robbers about here. Some
uncanny-looking gentlemen came prowling about my camp
one day,' and the guide told me to keep my eye well on
them and have my revolver ready. I was in some anxiety
about my Chinese boy, Liu-san. He knew I must have a lot
of money with me, though he did not know exactly where,,
for I hid it away in all sorts of places ; one lump of silver in
a sack of flour, another in an empty beef-tin, and so on. Sa
I was at first afraid that if a loaded revolver were given him,
he might make it very unpleasant for me one day in the
wilds. So, to inspire awe of our party in outsiders, I gave
him an unloaded revolver ; but aftenvards, thinking that doing
things by halves was little good, I loaded it for him, and told
him that I had the most complete trust in him. He and I
must be true to each other ; I would look after him, and he
must look after me. The plan answered admirably ; he used
to swagger about with the revolver, showed it to everybody
he met, and told the most abominable lies about the frightful
execution he could do with it. Nobody can lie with such
good eflect as a Chinaman, and as he told the gaping Mongols
and Turkis, that though he could only bowl over about twenty
men at a time with his weapon, I was bristling all over with
much more deadly instruments, they used to look upon me
with the greatest awe, and I never had the semblance of a
disturbance on the whole of my journey.
* I refer my readers to a most excellent description of this camel, its habits
and peculiarities, given by Prjevalsky in his book "Mongolia," translated by Mr*
Del mar Morgan.
Digitized by
Google
1887.] DEER {HUANG-YANG), 83
Liu-san's propensity for fibbing was not always so fortunate,
and he used to annoy me considerably at times by telling
people that I was a man of great importance, with the object,
of course, of enhancing his own. I used to see him button-
hole a grave old Turki, and tell him in a subdued whisper,
with mysterious glances at me, that I was " YSng-ta-j6n," the
great man Young(husband), an influential envoy from Peking,
and that the utmost respect must be shown to me. Then he
would pretend to be very obsequious to me, and bow and kow-
tow in the most servile manner. It was* hard to know whether
to be angry with him or to laugh over it ; he was always so
very comical about it. There would be a twinkle in his eye
the whole time, and now and then, while all this was going
on, he used to say to me in English i^his English), " I think
master belong big gentleman ; no belong small man." He
thought I was a big gentleman quite off his head, though,
to go wandering about in such out-of-the-way places, instead
of staying comfortably at home ; and he used to say, " I
think master got big heart ; Chinese mandarin no do this."
In this part of the country we used to see a great many
herds of deer — the Chinese huang-yang — and the Mongol
hunters have a very curious way of shooting them. They set
up a long row of big stones, placed at intervals of about ten
yards apart, across the usual track of the deer ; the deer, as
they come along over the smooth plain, are so surprised at
such an extraordinary sight that they pause and have a look
at the curious phenomenon. Then the wary Mongol hunter,
crouching behind one of these stones, applies the slowmatch
to the flash-pan of his matchlock and shoots the nearest
deer.
We passed several Mongol temples and Lamaseries, white-
washed and clean looking. On the top of a mound near one
of our camping-grounds I saw a peculiar small temple or
tomb, which I examined more closely ; it was a rough heap
Digitized by
Google
84 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
of stones, and contained a tablet inside a niche. I was looking
at this, when I was driven ofF with ignominy by some ravens
which had their nest in it They screeched and hovered about
within a few inches of my eyes in such an unpleasant way
that I, having no stick, beat a hasty retreat to camp.
On May 7 we emerged from the undulating hilly country,
and, after crossing a small stream called the Moli-ho, came
on to an extensive plain bounded on the north, at a distance
of five or six miles, by a barren, rugged range of hills, at the
foot of which could be seen some Mongol yurts, and a con-
spicuous white temple; while to the south, at a distance of
about twenty miles, were the Sheitung-ula Mountains (called
by the Chinese, the Liang-lang-shan, or Eurh-lang-shan), which
lie along the north bank of the Yellow river, and were
explored in 1873 by Prjevalsky. My guide had a tradition
about these mountains that, five or six hundred years ago, a
Chinese force of five thousand men was besieged on a hill
by a Mongol force. They had been enticed into these deserts
by the Mongols, who knew where all the water was to be
found, while the Chinese, being unable to procure any,
suffered terribly, and only a thousand survived ; ever since
the Chinese emperor has paid money to the Mongol prince
to keep quiet
A caravan from Guchen passed us on the 8th. There
were about a hundred and fifty camels, mostly unladen, but
several carried boxes of silver. This was the only caravan we
met coming from the west; it had left Guchen sixty days
previously.
The following day we passed close by a spur from the
northern range of hills, which appeared to be of volcanic
origin. The range presented a most fantastic appearance,
rising in sharp rugged peaks. It consists of a scries of sharp
parallel ridges with intervening strips of plain, perhaps a
quarter of a mile wide. In Manchuria we had also found
Digitized by
Google
I887.J DECEPTIVE DISTANCES, 85
indications of old volcanoes in the Chang-pei-shan, or Long
White Mountain, and the river of lava between Kirin and
Ninguta, while signs of volcanic action are to be seen in the
Tian-shan Mountains, as was first noticed by Humboldt, and
afterwards confirmed by Russian travellers.
A small stream — here a few inches deep only, flowing over
a wide pebbly bed — runs down from these hills. My guide
called it the Ho-lai-liu, and it is probably identical with the
stream which Prjevalsky crossed on the southern side of the
Sheitung-ula.
We encamped near it on the loth, in a spot bounded on
the south by a low round range of hills, or rather undulations.
During the morning I set off to look at this, thinking it was
a couple of miles or so distant, but the distances are most
deceptive here, and I found myself at the top in ten minutes ;
it was merely an undulation. A few days previously I had
strolled out casually to a hill which appeared to be about
five minutes' walk off, but was obliged to walk fast for half
an hour before I got there. There is nothing to guide the
eye — no objects, as men or trees, to judge by ; only a bare
plain and a bare smooth hillside are to be seen in front, and
it is hard to say whether a hill is half a mile or two miles
distant. On this occasion I was glad to find it was only half
a mile, as I had more time to examine the country round.
We were between two parallel ranges. The intervening
country is undulating, the depressions being generally sandy,
while the slopes are of alluvial deposit, covered with a reddish
clay, which supports a scanty crop of coarse grass and scrubby
plants. A few flowers of stunted growth appear occasionally,
but they evidently have a hard struggle for existence with
the severe climate of these deserts. The flower that flourishes
most in this region is the iris, which does not, however, attain
a greater height than six or eight inches, though occasionally
it is seen in clumps growing to a height of one or one and a
Digitized by
Google
86 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
half feet In the next march I climbed a small rocky hill,
on which I found wild peach in full bloom, growing luxuriantly
in the clefts, and also yellow roses. Later on, among the
lower ridges of the Altai Mountains, I found white roses.
We were now gradually approaching the heart of the Gobi,
and the aspect of the country became more and more barren ;
the streams disappeared, and water could only be obtained
from the rough wells or water-holes dug by former caravans.
No grass could be seen, and in its place the country was covered
with dry and stunted plants, burnt brown by the sun by day
and nipped by the frost by night. Not a sound would be
heard, and scarcely a living thing seen, as we plodded along
slowly, yet steadily, over those seemingly interminable plains.
Sometimes I would strike off from the road, and ascend some
rising ground to take a look round. To the right and left
would be ranges of bare hills, very much resembling those
seen in the Gulf of Suez, with rugged summits and long even
slopes of gravel running down to the plain, which extended
apparently without limit in front of me. And there beneath
was my small caravan, mere specks on that vast expanse of
desolation, and moving so slowly that it seemed impossible
that it could ever accomplish the great distance which had to
be passed before Hami could be reached.
Our usual plan was to start at about three in the afternoon,
and travel on till midnight or sometimes later. This was
done partly to avoid the heat of the day, which is very trying
to the loaded camels, but chiefly to let the camels feed by
daylight, as they cannot be let loose to feed at night for fear
of their wandering too far and being lost. Any one can
imagine the fearful monotony of those long dreary marches
seated on the back of a slow and silently moving camel.
While it was light I would read and even write ; but soon the
sun would set before us, the stars would appear one by one,
and through the long dark hours we would go silently on, often
Digitized by
Google
188;.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DESERT. 87
finding our way by the aid of the stars alone, and marking
•each as it sank below the horizon, indicating how far the
night was advanced. At length the g^ide would give the
signal to halt, and the camels, with an unmistakable sigh of
relief, would sink to the ground ; their loads would quickly be
taken off; before long camp would be pitched, and we would
turn in to enjoy a well-earned sleep, with the satisfaction of
having accomplished one more march on that long desert
journey.
Camp was astir again, however, early in the morning, and
by eight I used to get up, and after breakfast stroll about to
see what was to be seen, then write up my diary, plot out the
map, have dinner at one or two, and then prepare for the
next march. And so the days wore on with monotonous
regularity for ten whole weeks.
But though these marches were very monotonous, yet the
nights were often extremely beautiful, for the stars shone out
with a magnificence I have never seen equalled even in the
heights of the Himalayas. Venus was a resplendent object,
and it guided us over many a mile of that desert. The
Milky Way, too, was so bright that it looked like a bright
phosphorescent cloud, or as a light cloud with the moon behind
it This clearness of the atmosphere was probably due to
its being so remarkably dry. Everything became parched up,
and so charged with electricity, that in opening out a sheep-
skin coat or a blanket a loud cracking noise would be given
out, accompanied by a sheet of fire. A very peculiar and
unlooked-for result of this remarkable dryness of the atmo-
sphere was the destruction of a highly cherished coat of mine
which Sir John Walsham had given me just before I left
Peking, saying that it would last me for ever ; and so it would
have done anywhere else but in the Gobi Desert. It was
made of a very closely woven canvas material, and to all
appearance was indestructible, but it is a fact that before a
Digitized by
Google
88 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
month was over, that coat was in shreds. From the extreme
dryness it got brittle, and wherever creases were formed, it
broke in long rents. The outside bend of the elbow of the
sleeve was as sound as on the day it was bought, but the inside
of the bend was cut to pieces, and split wherever it had been
creased by the elbow.
The temperature used to vary very considerably. Frosts
continued to the end of May, but the days were often very hot,
and were frequently hottest at nine or ten in the morning, for
later on a strong wind would usually spring up, blowing
sometimes with extreme violence, up till sunset, when it
generally subsided again. If this wind was from the north, the
weather was fine but cold. If it was from the south, it would
be warmer, but clouds would collect and rain would sometimes
fall; generally, however, the rain would pass off into steam
before reaching the ground. Ahead of us we would see rain
falling heavily, ^but before it reached the ground it would
gradually disappear — vanish away — and when we reached the
spot over which the rain had been falling, there would not be a
sign of moisture on the gjround.
The daily winds, of which I have just spoken, were often
extremely disagreeable. It was with the greatest difficulty
that we could keep our tents from being blown down, and
everything used to become impregnated with the sand, which
found its way everywhere, and occasionally we had to give up
our march because the camels could not make any head against
the violence of the wind.
After crossing the connecting ridge between Sheitung-ula
and the mountains, we passed through some very dreary
country — a plain between parallel ranges of hills. The soil
was either sandy or covered with small pebbles, and was dotted
over with clumps of furze, which flowered almost exclusively
on the southern side, the cold blast of the north wind nipping
the flowers in the bud on the northern side. Extracts from
Digitized by
Google •-
188;.] THE G A LP IN GOBL 89
my diary will best illustrate the description of country we now
passed through.
May 13. — A very disagreeable windy day. The sand
penetrates everywhere ; you do not see the sand in the air,
but everything in the tent gradually gets covered with a coating
of it. The country is extremely dreary looking — nothing but
sandhills everywhere, and the air hazy with the particles of
sand. Every evening about five we see herds and flocks slowly
wending their way over the plain and converging on the water
near the camp, but only the sheep seem to be attended by
any one, and there is scarcely ever a yurt in sight.
The ponies go about in a semi- wild state, in troops of
about twenty mares, under the guardianship of one or more
stallions, who drive them about from place to place seeking
something to graze on. They are entirely free, and every
evening at sunset they march slowly back to the Mongol
yurt. The Mongols have great difficulty in getting hold of
one when they want it They chevy the selected pony, riding
after him with a long pole having a noose at the end, which
they at last succeed in throwing over his head.
On the 13th we passed through some low hills, and then
descended a valley in which were some gnarled and stunted
elm trees — the first trees I have seen in Mongolia. They were
about thirty feet high, and evidently very old. We then passed
over a sandy, barren waste, the beginning of the Galpin Gobi,,
the very worst part of the whole desert. We met a small
caravan of Mongols, and passed the encampment of a large
caravan going from Bautu to Guchen.
May 14. — A very strong wind sprang up E. by N. in the
morning and blew all day, and in the evening it was too strong
to march, so we halted to-day. There is no mistake about
the desert now — a sandy waste in every direction, with scrub
in patches ; irises are very common in small clumps.
May 15. — A very strong wind again to-day. I waited
Digitized by
Google
90 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. v.
till nearly sunset for it to abate, but it only seemed to increase.
However, I started. Before long dark clouds gathered, it blew
harder, and finally began to rain heavily. It was now pitch
dark, and the guide was literally feeling the way with his hands ;
so we halted and camped, only having accomplished about
three miles. The caravan from Bautu did not attempt to
march.
In my diary I apparently have merely recorded the fact that
we halted and camped, but I remember well how hard it was
to camp that night. The darkness was so great that we could
not see a yard in front of us, a regular hurricane was blowing,
and heavy bursts of drenching rain kept falling at intervals.
The lantern could not be lighted, on account of the violence of
the wind, and we had to grope about amongst the camels, get
the loads off, feel for the tent, and then get that up as best
we could — which was no easy matter, for the wind blowing
against it nearly blew us off our legs, and it was all we could
do to prevent the whole thing from being carried away.
The following day we continued over the Galpin Gobi, and
it was most difficult to find our way, as the previous day's
storm had obliterated all tracks. The guide, however, found
the well in the most wonderful manner.
May 17. — We continued over the plain, which was covered
with scrub, but there were a few tufts of coarse gjrass. A good
many herds of camels were seen, and some ponies and sheep.
Quantities of partridges rose from the scrub — many so tame
that I used to chevy them running along the ground. They
were generally in couples.
At eight o'clock a terrific wind blew up and dark clouds
gathered, so that after trying to push on a bit we were obliged
to halt, as it threatened to rain very heavily. Putting up a
tent in a sandstorm is one of the most irritating things I know
of No sooner do you hammer a peg in than it is pulled up
again by the force of the wind ; the sand gets driven into your
Digitized by
Google
188;.] THE HURKU HILLS. 91
^y^s as you kneel to drive in the pegs ; and to add to it all, it
was pitch dark, and heavy spurts of rain would come driving
down at intervals. Tents with walls are not fit for this hard
work, as the walls offer too much resistance to the wind.
May 18. — A fearful wind blew the whole day, with sand
and occasional bursts of rain. Two Mongols encamped with
us. They slept in a makeshift tent of felts supported by sticks,
leaving just room enough for the men to lie down with a fire
between them.
The guide wanted to halt on account of the wind, but I
objected, and we started at 6.30 p.m., travelling on towards
the range of hills in a westerly direction. The wind subsided
at sunset, and it was a fine night ; but the sand had been blown
over the track, so that we lost our way and were compelled to
halt at 11.30 p.m. in the middle of the plain, without sign of
water.
May 19. — Luckily we had brought a little water in our
water-casks, and so had enough for breakfast ; but we had to
start afterwards, as we could not remain without water.
We started at 11 am., and soon found the track, as we had
the range to guide us, and at five miles reached a well ; but
after watering the camels we pushed on for the next well,
gradually ascending the range, which I now found to be the
eastern extremity of the Hurku Hills, the highest part of which
was 700 feet above the plain, the track crossing it at 630 feet.
We can realize how deceptive the distances are here. Some
days ago we first saw this range, and I thought that we should
reach it at the end of that march, but we have taken four days
to do so. We passed over a plateau at the top of the range
for three and a half miles, and then descended very gradually
to the plain again, camping at 7.10 p.m. near a well.
The hills are very barren, but have a few low bushes
scattered over their surface, which serve as food for the camels
which roam among them. They present a jagged outline, the
Digitized by
Google
92 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
prominences being of bare igneous rock, but the depressions
are filled with gravel of a grey colour.
May 20. — A really delightful morning. The desert is not
so dreary after all ; for no artist could wish for a finer display
of colouring than the scene presents this morning. Overhead
is a spotless, clear blue sky, and beneath it the plain has lost
its dull monotonous aspect, fading away in various shades of
blue, each getting deeper and deeper, till the hills are reached ;
and these again, in their rugged outline, present many a
pleasing variety of colour, all softened down with a hazy
bluish tinge; while the deceitful mirage makes up for the
absence of water in the scene, and the hills are reflected again
in what appear to be lovely lakes of clear, still water.
For two marches we kept gradually ascending towards a
watershed, connecting the Hurku with a similar but somewhat
lower range running parallel to the road, eight or ten miles
to the south. Crossing this connecting ridge, we arrived at
the Bortson well in the early hours of the morning of
the 22nd.
There were a few Mongol yurts here on the banks of some
small trickles of water, running down from the Hurku Hills to
the north. Here I crossed Prjevalsky's track. In his first,
and also in his third journey, he had crossed the Galpin Gobi
from the south, and passed through this place on his way
northward to Urga. The description he gives of the Galpiu
Gobi is not cheerful. He says, " This desert is so terrible that
in comparison with it the deserts of Northern Tibet may be
called fruitful. There, at all events, you may find water and
good pasturage in the valleys : here there is neither, not even
a single oasis — everywhere the silence of the Valley of Death.
The Hurku Hills are the northern definition of the wildest and
most sterile part of the Gobi."
The Galpin Gobi, where I crossed it to the Hurku Hills,
could be seen extending as far as the eye could reach to
Digitized by
Google
i887.] ALONG THE HURKU HILLS. 93
the N.E. Where Prjevalsky crossed it its width was eighteen
miles only, and it was 3570 feet above the sea. The Mongols
there told him that it extended to the east and to the west for
twenty days* march. It forms a marked depression in the
great Mongolian plateau, and is a distinct dividing-line
between the Altai and the In-shan mountain systems, for I
will show presently that the Hurku Hills may be regarded
as the prolongation of the former mountains.
On the 22nd we continued along the southern base of the
Hurku Hills, passing over an almost level plain of an ex-
tremely desolate appearance. It was composed of a grey
gravel, and was covered with small tufts of plants perfectly
scorched up. What little there had been of spring green is
already disappearing, and the young grass and plants which
have had the courage to show themselves are withering, and
all is brown and bare.
On the 22nd we had the misfortune to lose one of our
camels; he shied at something, broke loose, threw his load
(luckily), and disappeared into the darkness. He was never
heard of again, although we hunted most of the night and all
the next day till the evening.
After this we crossed some low hills running down from
the Hurku range, and arrived on the banks of a delightful
small stream, about a foot wide and a few inches deep, with
some patches of green grass on its margin. Here we halted
for three days to buy a couple of new camels. There were
several Mongol yurts about here, and we had visits from some
of the men. They are very fine-looking, tall, strong, muscular
fellows, more like what one would expect of the descendants
of Chenghiz Khan than any other Mongols. They were, how-
ever, very childish, amused at everything, and very rough in
their manners.
The caravan from Bautu which was passed on the road
on the 13th, caught us up here and pitched camp close by.
Digitized by
Google
94 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
There were a hundred and forty camels, carrying made-up
clothes and leathern boots to Guchen. Their camp looked
very neat. The packs were arranged in long parallel lines,
and were very neatly done up, and everything looked
brand new. When it threatened rain, each pack was covered
with a white felt, which was tied round it. The coolies
had one big tent, and the agent a smaller one. The
former were smart fellows, and did their work wonderfully
quickly and well. They were Chinamen from Kwei-hwa-
cheng. The agent in charge came over to visit me, and
we had a long talk, for I had beg^n to pick up a certain
amount of Chinese from my nightly conversations with Liu-
san. This agent had been to Tientsin, and had bought there
a few Remington and Martini-Henry rifles, and also a Catling
gun for the general at Urumchi. He said that from Hi
(Kueldja) the usual road to Peking was by Kobdo, Uliassutai,
and Kiakhta. It is one hundred and ten stages by the road —
a distance which he says he rode in twenty-eight days upon
one occasion, when taking an important despatch, at the time
of the retrocession of Kueldja to China by Russia.
Two new camels having been purchased, we set out again
on the 28th, in spite of the violent wind that was blowing ; but
we did not get far, and had to halt again the whole of the next
day on account of the wind. Although it was now the end of
May, the cold at night was still considerable, and I have noted
that in bed I wore two flannel shirts and a cardigan jacket,
lying under two thick blankets. It was the wind that made
it cold, blowing from the W.N.W. and N.W.
On May 31 we passed over an undulating country covered
with coarse grass. Several flocks and herds were seen, and to
the south there appeared to be good grass-land in the depression
between the Hurku Hills and a parallel range, ten or twelve
miles to the south. According to a Mongol who visited us,
there is some land cultivated by Mongols four miles to the
Digitized by
Google
i887.] MONGOL CUSTOMS, 95
south at Huru-su-tai. At seven and a half miles we passed a
small stream of good water.
In the next few days we passed along a plain lying between
the Hurku Hills and the southern parallel range, for which I
could get no name. We saw a peak of the Hurku Hills,
which my Mongol called Baroso-khai, and in some clefts, near
the summit, we could see patches of snow.
We passed several Mongol encampments, and one day a
Mongol official came to visit me. He was an old man, and
not interesting, showing no signs of ordinary intelligence. He
had bad eyes, and I gave him some of Calvert's carbolic
ointment to rub on the eyelids, for which he did not appear at
all thankful. He fished about in the leg of his long boot,
and produced from it a miscellaneous collection of articles — a
pipe, a small piece of string, some camel's wool, a piece of
paper, and various odds and ends, and eventually my ointment
was done up in a suitable packet to his satisfaction, and
stowed away again in the leg of his boot.
The Mongols carry about half their personal effects in their
boots, and my man, Ma-te-la, one day produced from his boots
every little scrap that I had thrown away during the march,
such as bits of paper, ends of string, a worn-out sock, and
numerous other trifles. Everything is so precious to these
Mongols in the desert that they never waste anything, and I
soon learnt the value they put on every little article.
Liu-san one day took me to task severely for giving away
an old lime-juice bottle to an ordinary Mongol. He said such
valuable gifts ought to be reserved for the big men. So the
next "swell" I came across was presented with a lime-juice
bottle with great state, and he was given to understand that
he was not likely to get such gifts as that every day in the
week, and that he was lucky to have come across such a
generous gentleman as myself.
As we passed Mongol encampments, men used to come
Digitized by
Google
96 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
galloping over the plain to know if we had anything for sale,
and to beg some tobacco of us. The Chinese guide would
never give them any, although he had plenty ; but poor Ma-te-la
always used to give them a pinch or two, or, at any rate, a
piece of brown paper — which he would produce from his boot,
and which was probably a relic of something I had thrown
away. Liu-san never smoked or drank — he said he was a
teetotaller, and was afraid even of my lime-juice.
The ponies about here are very good, stout, sturdy little
animals, up to any amount of work, but more fit for riding
purposes than the miniature cart-horses which we had seen in
the extreme eastern end of Mongolia, on the steppes near
Tsi-tsi-har in Manchuria. Those were wonderful little animals,
and were always used by the Chinese carters to put in the
shafts, although they were never more than thirteen hands
high — while the cart used to carry a load of sometimes two
tons, being dragged along by six or seven animals (ponies and
mules) in front, but with only this one sturdy little animal in
the shafts.
On June 3, just as we were preparing to start, we saw a
great dark cloud away in the distance over the plain. It was
a dust storm coming towards us. Where we were it was
quite still, and the sky was bright overhead, and perfectly
clear, but away to the west we saw the dark clouds — as black
as night Gradually they overspread the whole sky, and as
the storm came nearer we heard a rumbling sound, and then
it burst upon us with terrific force, so that we were obliged to
lie at full length on the ground behind our baggage. There
was fortunately no sand about — ^we were on a gravel plain —
but the small pebbles were being driven before the wind with
great velocity, and hurt us considerably. The storm lasted
for half an hour, and it was then as calm and bright as before,
and much cooler.
We still marched over this steppe country. There are
Digitized by
Google
188;.} CURIOUS SANDHILLS. 97
ranges of hills on either hand, about fifteen miles distant on
the north and ten miles on the south, and the plain occupies
the space between them, which is not quite flat, however,
but slopes gradually up to the hills on either hand. The
distances, as usual, are most deceptive ; the ranges look quite
close, as if you could get up to them easily in an hour, and
the mountains ahead appear comparatively close, but you travel
on and on and don't seem to get any nearer to the distant
hills, while the peaks on your right and left are only very slowly
left behind.
On the 4th we reached a Mongol encampment, called
Tu-pu-chl This is the most thickly populated part I have
seen in the Gobi, as there were several other yurts scattered
over the plain. The guide had left a large supply of flour and
rice here on a previous trip, and now replenished the stock he
had with him. The Mongols looked very poor, thin, and badly
fed, and were miserably dressed Their flocks of sheep, though,
were in first-class condition, and were collected round the
different yurts. We continued on about another six miles,
and then halted by some more yurts, where a new Mongol
joined our party to look after the camels.
On the following day we crossed a ridge connecting the
Hurku Hills with the southern range, and descended a wide
valley or plain between those two ranges on the western side
of the connecting ridge. Between us and the southern range
was a most remarkable range of sandhills, called by my g^ide
Hun-kua-ling. It is about forty miles in length, and is com-
posed of bare sand, without a vestige of vegetation of any sort
on it, and I computed it in places to be as much as nine
hundred feet in height, rising abruptly out of a gravel plain.
With the dark outline of the southern hills as a background,
this white fantastically shaped sand-range presents a very
striking appearance. It must have been formed by the action
of the wind, for to the westward is an immense sandy tract,
H
Digitized by
Google
98 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
and it is evident that the wind has driven the sand from this
up into the hollow between the Hurku Hills and the range to
the south, thus forming these remarkable sandhills. Tradition
corroborates this supposition, for the Mongols say that a large
force had been collected, and was preparing to march to China^
when a mighty wind arose, blowing the sand of the desert
against them and burying them all together, with several
villages and temples. At the present time a stream runs along
the northern foot of the range ; this stream has some patches
of meadow land on its banks, on which are pitched several
groups of Mongol yurts.
• The country we passed through was undulating, sloping
downwards towards the range. In parts the soil was firm
gravel, and in parts very loose sand — much more loose than
ordinary sand. It seems to me that this is sand formed by
wind, and not by water ; it is finer and more gritty. The actual
surface is very thinly coated with gjrey gravel, but this is so
thin that each footstep leaves a mark in white from the under-
lying sand.
After passing the end of the sand-range, we entered a
country different from any we had yet gone through. In
origin it was probably a plain of sand, but the wind's action
has broken it up into sandhills and depressions, making up a
scene which, for its extreme wildness and desolation, surpasses
anything I have ever seen. The elements of the air seem to
have fought with and rent the very surface of the land, and
the scene is one of indescribable confusion. To add to the
weirdness of the spectacle, the country was covered with
tamarisk bushes, the roots of which had been laid bare by
the wind blowing the sand away. There they stood, with their
gnarled and contorted roots exposed to view. The sandhills
were sometimes very quaint and curious in shape, but they
usually ran in long ridges, cutting into one another from every
direction. They rise in the most sudden manner out of a level
Digitized by
Google
X
Q
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
1887.]
FORMATION OF SANDHILLS.
99
piece of ground, sometimes to a height of a hundred feet or
even more.
This is a general section of them. . At A the sand drops
suddenly at a slope of \. A is a little below the highest point
of the hillock, and the edge it represents runs in an absolutely-
straight line through the length of the sandhill. The line of
intersection with the ground (if the ground is level) is also
absolutely straight, so that, looking towards the steep side, the
sandhill presents the appearance of a well-constructed fortifica-
tion. Every bush and piece of scrub on the plain has hillocks
of sand on the leeward side. This is conspicuous, as the sand
is white and the surroundings dark gravel. It seems to me
that the sandhills are formed thus : A strong wind blows from
the west, say, forming hillocks to the east of the bushes. At
places where the bushes are close together, one hillock runs into
another, several thus forming one big hillock. In the case of
big ranges, I think it must have been started by a number of
trees * growing on the stretch of fertile ground, or perhaps by a
village, or a number of temples, as tradition says. The sand-
range does not rest against any solid range, but occupies a
position by itself between two ranges from fifteen to twenty
miles apart, thus —
X9000P6ET
A atrvtch df fertile ground
Nortfaero Range Sand' Range Southern Range
The plain between these two ranges is of gravel, underneath
* There are trees now growing in the neighbourhood to a height of twelve or
fifteen feet, and these are sometimes in clamps of forty or fifty.
Digitized by
Google
loo THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. v.
which is sand. Near Pidjan I saw a similar though lower
range, and Prjevalsky mentions seeing one near Sachow.
The Hurku Hills come to an end here, and we could see
before us across the plain, at a distance of eighty miles, the
outlying spurs of the Altai Mountains ; but though the former
terminated here as a continuous range, yet they are connected
to a certain extent, by a series of isolated hills to the north, with
the Altai Mountains. This connection may, perhaps, be best
illustrated by supposing the country to be flooded to a height of
about four thousand feet above ordinary sea-level. Then on
the west would be seen the great headlands of the Altai Moun-
tains ; on the east two capes (the Hurku Hills and the southern
range) running out into the ocean. To the north would be a
series of islands, stepping-stones as it were, forming the con-
nection between the Hurku Hills and the Altai Mountains. To
the south would be the open sea.
The Hurku range has an extreme length of about two
hundred and twenty miles. It is highest in the western end,
where it presents rather the appearance of a string of elongated
ridges than of a continuous range, as it does further east. Its
highest point is the prominent mountain, for which I obtained
the name Barosakhai, but which I have not the slightest doubt
is identical with the mountain called by the Russian traveller
Pevstof, Gourbaun-Seikyn.* The height of this mountain is
probably about eight thousand feet above the sea, and it had
slight snow on it in the middle of June.
The ridges to the west of this have a height of about seven
thousand feet ; while to the east, where Prjevalsky crossed the
range, it was 6120 feet above sea-level, and from that point it
still diminishes in height to the eastward — at its termination
having an approximate height of five thousand feet. Its width,
where Prjevalsky crossed, is seven miles. Throughout it pre-
* I foand it very hard to get at the proper pronunciation from the Mongols.
The If 's are scarcely heard, and it is possible I may not have caught them.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] PREPARING FOR ATTACK, loi
sents a bare, sterile appearance, though a few plants mentioned
by Prjevalsky, including the peach, may be found in places.
The range which runs parallel to the Hurku Hills, almost
throughout their entire length, is very similar in general
character, but is usually at a lower elevation — the difference in
height varying from four or five hundred to a thousand feet.
At the western extremity, however, the southern is the more
elevated of the two by about eight hundred or a thousand feet
On June 8, towards dark, after passing through the sand-
hills, we approached a low range of hills. The guide halted
here and told me to take out my revolver, as, he said, the hills
were a favourite resort of robbers. So I dismounted and went
on ahead of the caravan, revolver in hand ; the boy and the
guide (the latter armed with a tent-pole) each took a flank.
We took the bell off the camel, and approached the hills in
dead silence. It was most sensational, as it was now quite
dark, and we could see nothing but the black outline of the
hills against the sky, while the absence of the " tingle-tingle "
of the bell made the death-like silence of the desert still more
impressive.
When we got close up to the range, the guide said we had
better wait till daylight, as the robbers had a nasty habit of
rolling big stones down upon caravans going through the pass.
So we put on our sheepskins, and lay down on the ground till
day broke, taking it in turns to watch.
The Mongol said he had seen a horseman riding to the
hill while it was dusk, and my boy occasionally conjured up
images of others riding about, and let off his revolver twice ;
but nothing happened, and we resumed our march at 3.30,
still on the defensive, with our revolvers in our hands, as the
hills we now entered had plenty of suitable hiding-places for
brigands. Nothing could be wilder or more desolate than
these hills — utterly devoid of vegetation, and covered with a
dark gravel
Digitized by
Google
I02 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
On the summit of each little knoll was a heap of stones,
which, in the dark, we should inevitably have mistaken for men,
and probably have wasted a lot of ammunition on them, as
the guide was careful to tell me that if I did not shoot any
man I saw sharp, he (the brigand, not the guide) would shoot
me. We halted at 6.30, near a small water-hole in the valley.
We started again soon after four in the afternoon, and an
hour later reached the dry bed of a river flowing south, one
hundred feet below the camp, and the lowest point I have yet
reached in the Gobi (probably two thousand eight hundred
feet). Here there was one very large cairn of stones and a lot
of smaller ones, marking the place where a large caravan
carrying silver was attacked five years ago, nine men being
killed, the silver carried off, and the remainder of the men left
to continue their way as best they could on foot across this
awful desert
For three miles further we passed through low hills. At
every hundred yards or so was a small pile of stones, to which
our two Mongols used regularly to add one or two. At the
point where the hills ended were two large cairns, one on
each side of the road. To these the Mongols added more
stones, carefully building them up, and giving a sigh of relief
as we left the hills and entered an open plain again.
At dusk we approached a hollow, in which was some water.
The guide fearing that brigands might be encamped near this,
we repeated the stage-conspirator performance, advancing
noiselessly with revolvers in hand. Nobody appeared, however,
and when we got on the open plain again, we resumed our
former peaceful demeanour. It was a very disagreeable march,
very dark, sultry, and oppressive, and we got along very slowly,
as Mongols and camels were both very tired.
We camped at midnight, with no water within twelve miles.
I opened the second bottle of sherry which I had brought
from Peking, and which I had reserved for the worst part of
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A GENERAL HIT OUT. 103
the Gobi. I felt as if I were a regular tippler in the delight
with which I heard the pop of the cork, and saw the wine
gurgling out into the tumbler. It was not improved by the
jolting of the journey and the heat, but was uncommonly good
for all that.
The following day we continued over the plain, on which
we passed two or three herds of wild asses, and on the i ith
we reached a large Mongol encampment named Man-chin-tol,
in a plain at the foot of the first spurs of the Altai Mountains,
on the higher points of which we could see slight traces of
snow. Water was plentiful, being found in small pools all
over the plain. It had, however, a brackish taste, and there
was soda efflorescence on the margin of the pools.
During the morning a small caravan of twenty camels from
Su-chow pitched camp near us. It belonged to a Chinese
merchant trading amongst the Mongols. We bought some
black beans for the camels, and shiau-mi (small millet) for
porridge for myself.
I had a general hit out all round to-day. On asking the
guide how many days it was to Hami, he said twenty, but
only thirteen remain to make up the sixty, which is the
contract time. I told my boy to explain this to him, and tell
him that he would not get eighteen taels for the half camel
extra. He muttered something about having lost a camel and
being delayed in buying new ones, and about the rain and the
wind. But I explained to him that I was paying a high price,
and had taken light loads to go quickly, and that fifty days
was the time in which I ought to get to Hami, but that sixty
days was put in the contract to cover all risks of rain, etc. ; and
finally I told him that I had a passport from the Tsung-li-
yamen, arid that air the mandarins had been written to, to give
me help, so that when I arrived at Hami, and told the Yamen
how he had delayed me on the road, there would be a row.
But I am afraid all this talking won't get me to Hami any the
Digitized by
Google
I04 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
quicker because the camels are not capable of doing it. They
are iniserable creatures, old and broken down.
I saw this at Kwei-hwa-cheng, but the guide said he was
going ^to change them for better ones in Mongolia. This he
has not done, although I have been at him several times
about it. Truth is, it is not all his fault ; those scoundrels at
Kwei-hwa-cheng are to blame. They made me give the whole
money in advance (I protested against it, but it was the only
thing to be done). With this they bought the camels— which
were scarce at the- time, as a large caravan was just about to
start for Guchen— and sent the guide off with one hundred-
weight of brick tea and no money. The consequence is that
he cannot change the camels, and I had to advance him thirty-
eight [taels to buy two new ones, to replace the one that had
run away and another gone sick. Of course he has got the
whip hand of me, but que voulez vousf If I had not advanced
the money, we should not have been even as far as we are now.
My only guarantee is in his honesty, which is doubtful, and in
the willingness of the Yamen at Hami to take up the matter,
which is also problematical.
I had a fling at Liu-san too ; he had begun explaining to
me how bad the camel-men at Kwei-hwa-cheng were, and
how Mr. Clarke's man had squeezed a part of the money I
paid for the camels. Now, I happened to know that he had
also squeezed ten taels of that, but I had purposely avoided
telling him that I knew, in order not to complicate matters.
Now I did tell him, looking him full in the face to see the
effect. But a Chinaman is inscrutable. There was no sign
of guilt His face changed instantly from the highly moral
expression which it had worn, to one of indignant defiance,
and, turning to the guide, he said (in Chinese), "Yang-laya"
(myself) "says that I squeeze money— I, a Tientsin man— in a
place like Kwei-hwa-cheng ! " and a lot more in the same strain.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing at the way they
Digitized by
Google
i887.] WILD CAMELS. 105
both kept their countenances, because the arrangement had
been between the two ; but the guide's face did not move a
muscle, except to express supreme astonishment at my
audacity in even supposing such an honest boy as mine was
capable of squeezing me. I said no more to my boy. His
manner, however, has very much changed for the better, and
he is evidently trying to get into my good books again. In
the afternoon he told me a long yarn about how good and
honest his father was, and how honest he knew himself to be —
all of which I was very glad to hear, but did not offer any
remarks; on the subject. These rows will happen in the best-
regulated families, but they are a nuisance. I limit them io
once a fortnight, when possible, as one cannot be always
•'nagging" at the unfortunate guide. We started at 4.15, and
continued over the plain, passing several yurts and many-
flocks of sheep and goats and some ponies.
June 13. — ^A north wind, slight rain in the morning,,
and very cloudy. It cleared at eleven, and away on the
northern range was j«^?a;— quite low down, too — most delight-
ful to look at By two it had all cleared away, except on the
highest ridge.
I suggested to the guide that we should halt for a day
when we came to a good grazing-ground, to let the camels
pick up, and then make a renewed effort ; but he says that if
they were to halt for one day, they would not go on at all
the next — the only thing is to keep them at it. Rather like
the cab-horse in " Pickwick," which had to be kept in harness
for fear of it falling down !
To the north, at a distance of twenty-five miles, are the
Altai Mountains, rising to about nine thousand feet above the
sea There was slight snow on the summit before to-day's
fall. They are entirely bare, and the southern slopes are
steep, but not precipitous. In the centre of the range is said
to be a plateau of grass land to which the wild^camels resort.
Digitized by
Google
io6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [[chap. v.
The guide says they keep away from the caravan tracks and
stay up in the mountains. The Mongols follow them and
catch their young, which they use for riding only, as they will
not carry a pack. The guide says they will travel eight
hundred li in a day — probably an exaggeration. Their legs
are thin, and the hair J smooth. At three years old they are
said to be of the size of a horse ; at five years, the size of a
small tame camel.
The guide also says that there are wild horses and mules
about here and westward. On to-day's march I saw some
of what the guide calls wild mules, through my telescope.
They are the kyang of Ladakh and Tibet, and are in size
about thirteen or fourteen hands, and in colour a light
bay, being brightest under the belly. The head and tail
were like a mule's, the neck thick and arched. They trotted
fast, with a free, easy motion. The guide says the horses
go about in troops of two or three hundred.
We started at 3.45, and passed over a gravel plain in a
west-by-south direction. This plain is bounded on the south
by a range at a distance of about eight miles. The range
runs in a general easterly by westerly direction, and is about
six hundred feet high on the average.
We camped at twelve amongst some low hills, with water
three miles to westward. The camels are very poor ; one of
the new ones has gone lame, and another can hardly move
along with a very light load.
June 14. — A fine, bright day. The sun was very hot,
but a cool breeze blew from the east.
We started at 4.20, still passing over the plain, and at ten
entered some low hills. I had a long conversation with my
boy in Chinese, helped out occasionally by English. His
brother is an importer of racing ponies to Shanghai, and he
says they all come from Jehol-Lamamiau. They are driven
down to Tientsin and shipped in foreign steamers at fifteen
Digitized by
Google
i887.] THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS. 107
dollars a head, or three ponies with a man for thirty-six
dollars. He has been a riding-boy himself at Shanghai, and
is a pretty smart fellow at times, when he likes, and on the
whole is a satisfactory boy for the trip. His English has
improved a good deal, and, with my small knowledge of
Chinese, we manage to understand each other all right. Now
and then I am astonished to hear him come out with a choice
selection of English swearing, to supplement his stock of
Chinese oaths, when he is having a row with the guide.
We camped at 11.35 at Liang-ko-ba, a collection of four
Mongol yurts on the plain, round a patch of green.
Jufie 15. — Cloudy, with a few drops of rain. I could
see the rain falling all round, but it passed off in steam
without reaching the ground.
We changed two camels here; one had gone lame, and
the other could scarcely move. I bought a sheep for three
bricks of tea for which I had paid a tael in Kwei-hwa-cheng.
There were some ponies feeding about They were strong,
well-shaped animals, but in bad condition. I rode one
which a Mongol had ridden to our tent It was very
different from the clumsy ponies of Peking. We started at
4.40, and still passed over gjravelly plain, keeping along the
edge of a low range of hills parallel to the road on the
right
June 16. — Wind westerly, in violent gusts; fine, but
cloudy; snow falling on Altai Mountains. In the morning
I climbed a hill and had a fine view of the country round
for about eighty miles in every direction. The main range
of the Altai Mountains is not at all of a uniform height,
but, on the contrary, consists of distinct high ridges con-
nected by lower hills. To the eastward I could see the
snow-capped ridge which forms the butt end of the Altai
Mountains. It is about twenty-five miles in length, and
north-west of it is a second ridge, which also had some
Digitized by
Google
io8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
slight snow on it In the space between the two ridges —
fifty or sixty miles — is a succession of lower hills, rising
about one thousand feet above the plain. The two ridges
rise abrupt and clear from the surrounding hills. Between
my route and the Altai Mountains is a succession of low,
narrow ridges with intervening plains running in a south-
easterly direction. All are perfectly bare ; there are no signs
of bushes, and even grass is extremely scanty. To the south
the same succession of ridges and plains extends. The
ridges are from three hundred to five hundred feet in height,
and five or six miles apart. On the next march we followed
down the gravelly bed of a stream which appeared occa-
sionally in a small trickle above the surface, and the margin
of which was covered thickly with the soda efflorescence which
seems invariably to mark the presence of water in the Gobi.
On the 17th we emerged from the hills again, on to another
great plain running between two parallel ranges of bare hills.
On this plain we saw some more wild asses or horses, which
I had good opportunity of examining with my telescope.
They have large heads and ears, and thick, rather short, full,
round bodies, legs well in proportion to their bodies, long
tails reaching nearly to the ground, and thin like a mule's
or donkey's. As far as I can see, they have no mane, or
only a very short one. The guide calls them mules, and
says they are from wild she-asses.
The following day we continued over the plain, but after
sunset it became extremely dark, the sky being covered with
heavy rain-clouds. About eleven the camels began flounder-
ing about, and we found we were in a bog. There had been
heavy rain here during the day; the soil was a very slimy
clay, and the ground broken up into hillocks. The guide
was with difficulty persuaded to light a lantern, as he says
that it frightens the camels, and they see their way better
without it
Digitized by
Google
i887.] REFRACTORY CAMELS. 109
When it was lighted, the position did not look cheerful.
The camels were each perched up on a little hillock, sepa-
rated from each other by pools of water and slimy clay.
The guide, the two Mongols, and my boy were pulling away
at their nose-strings, till I thought their whole noses would be
pulled off, but they would not budge. Beating them behind
was next tried, but that also failed. At last they tried pulling
them backwards, and this had the desired effect — they were
started, and once they were in motion they were kept going,
although they nearly fell or split themselves up at every
step. But now the path had disappeared, it began to rain,
and I thought we were in for a night on the swamp, which
would probably have been our fate had not my compass
shown that we were going off in the wrong direction, there
being no signs of a star for the guide to follow. At last we
came upon sand, found a path, and very soon after a patch
of gravel, on which we pitched camp.
We had to halt the next day, because the camels would
not be able to get through the wet clay soil which surrounded
us, in spite of what the guide had said about their getting
stiff if they halted a day. We started the next morning, and
for a few days continued along the plain between the two
parallel ranges, that to the north rising some one thousand
five hundred feet, and the one to the south about eight hundred
feet above the plain. Both ranges, like all the other hills
which I saw in crossing the Gobi, were absolutely bare.
One evening Ma-te-la, the Mongol assistant, was suddenly
seen to shoot ahead at a great pace, and, on asking, I found
he was going home. On he went, far away over the plain,
till he became a mere dot in the distance, and I could not
help envying him. In the same direction, and with nothing
apparently between me and it but distance, was my home,
and I felt myself struggling to pierce through space, and see
myself returning, like Ma-te-la, home. But the dull reality
Digitized by
Google
no THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
was that I was trudging along beside a string of heavy, silent,
slow-going camels, and on I had to go, for hour after hour
through the night with monotonous regularity.
Suddenly, after travelling for nine hours, the gravel plain
ended, and we passed over a stretch of grass and halted by a
small stream. Close by were pitched four tents (yurts), and
this was Ma-te-la's home.
He came to me the next day, saying the guide could not
pay him all his wages, and asked me to lend the guide four
taels, which I did. He has served the guide for two years,
and the guide has now given him only fifteen taels {£i i^s.).
That guide is a regular scoundrel. Poor Ma-te-la had to work
night and day, collect fuel, fetch water, look after the camels
grazing, and then have to walk the whole march. In spite of
this he was always perfectly happy, and used to sing and
whistle the whole march, and would laugh at everything —
if you even looked at him you saw a grin overspread his
whole countenance. And now, for all his two years of hard
work in this frightful desert, in the arctic cold of winter and
the tropical heat of summer, he got fifteen taels — about a penny
a day.
Started at 3.10 p.m., and passed over the gravelly plain
again. The sunset was most wonderful. Even in the Indian
hills during the rains I have never seen such a peculiar red
tinge as the clouds had to-night. It was not red, it was not
purple, but a mixture between the two — very deep, and at
the same time shining very brightly. I have seen at Simla
and in Switzerland more glorious sunsets, with richer diffusion
of colours, but never one of such a strange colouring as
this. An hour and a half later, when it was nearly dark,
a very light, phosphorescent-looking cloud hung over the place
of sunset
Camped at 1.30 a.m. in a hollow among some low hills, in
which was a small stream of 1^ r.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] ORIGIN OF SLOPING GRAVEL PLAINS. iii
June 23. — The gravel plain gradually gave way to a
light clay soil, with plenty of bushes ; and a little further we
came on a regular meadow, with herds of cattle, sheep, and
ponies, and several Mongol tents. We even saw patches of
cultivation and trees, and water was plentiful, and was led on
to the fields by irrigation ducts. Wheat was the only crop
grown. The Mongol is evidently not fitted for agriculture,
for the plots of cultivation were in the most untidy state.
There were no signs of furrows, and the seed had evidently
been thrown broadcast over the land ; in some places it was
very thick, and in others very thin. This was the first real
oasis we had come across. It is in a depression between
the range of hills, the ground gently sloping down to it from
every side.
The name of this oasis is Ya-hu. It is about five miles in
extent from west to east, and rather more from north to south.
Some twelve miles to the west is a remarkable hill, called by
the guide Ho-ya-shan. It rises very abruptly out of the plain
to a height of about two thousand feet, and is a perfectly
solid mass of rock of a light colour. There is said to be
water on the summit, possibly in the crater of an old volcano,
as in the Pei-shan in Manchuria.
On June 25 we reached Ula-khutun, where the road to
Hami leaves the road to Guchen. It is merely a camping-
ground, situated in a stony plain, surrounded by low mounds
or heaps of gravel, at the southern base of a branch from the
main range of the Altai Mountains, from which it is separated
by a gravelly plain about twenty miles in width — the exten-
sion westward of the same plain in which Ya-hu is situated.
The height of this southern ridge must be considerable, for
a heavy snowstorm was falling on it even so late in the year
as this (June 25), and the snow seemed to remain there.
A peculiarity common to all the mountains which I had
seen in the Gobi — the long, even, sloping gravel plains which
Digitized by
Google
112 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. v.
run down from their summits till they join the corresponding
sloping plains of a parallel range or merge in the broad
desert — ^had long puzzled me. But here, among the lower
ridge of the Altai Mountains, I had better opportunities of
examining the rocks, and it seems to me that the following
is the true cause of the formation of these sloping plains.
The hills in the Gobi, as has been noted several times, are
perfectly bare, and in such an extremely dry climate, exposed
to the icy cold winds of winter and the fierce rays of the
summer sun, and unprotected by one atom of soil, the rocks
first decompose, and then crumble away to a remarkable
extent, and there being no rainfall sufficient to wash away the
debris, the lower features of a range gradually get covered with
a mass of dibris falling from the upper portions, and in the
course of time a uniform slope b created, often thirty or forty
miles in length, and it is only for a few hundred feet at the
top that the original jagged rocky outline is seen.
In the smaller features the process of decomposition could
be seen actually going on. The rocks are all cracked and
give way at a touch,* while occasionally masses spontaneously
detach themselves. The general effect, then, that is being
produced on these mountains by the combined action of the
heat of the sun and the winter frosts, is the same as would be
produced by heat upon a rugged mass of ice. In the course
of time (for the one, a few million years — for the other, a few
minutes) both would be modified into round smooth masses.
From Ula-khutun we passed through some low hills, and
on the march came across the horn of an Ovis argalL It
was lying in the middle of the path. On measuring it, I
found it was fifty inches round the curve and seventeen
inches in circumference at base — an immense horn. The
* The rocks ased actually to become sunburnt. On the side exposed to the sun
and the weather they would become dark brown and shining, while on the side
4mexposed to the sun they were of a dull light-brown colour.
Digitized by
Google
1887.] DESERT OF ZUNGARIA. 113
Mongols say there are plenty in the Tian-shan — they called
It ^zrAg-S//— and say it has a white breast (see Prjevalsky).
The kuku-yamen, they say, is also found about here.
We camped at 6.30 by a spring and some good grass,
which the camels have not had for some time. I climbed
one of the highest hills to have a look round. There were
plenty of white soft clouds about, but suddenly my eye rested
on what I felt sure was a great snowy range. I had out my
telescope, and there, far away in the distance, were the real
Tian-shan, only just distinguishable from the clouds. My
delight was unbounded, and for long I feasted my eyes on
those " Heavenly Mountains," as the Chinese call them, for they
marked the end of my long desert journey.
Our next march, however, was the most trying of all, for
we had to cross the branch of the Gobi which is called the
desert of Zungaria, one of the most absolutely sterile parts of
the whole Gobi. We started at eleven in the morning, passing
at first through the low hills, which were perfectly barren,
but the hollows had a few tufts of bushes, and one hollow
was filled with white roses. After seven and a half miles we
left the hills, and entered a gravel plain covered with coarse
bushes, but no grass. There was no path, and we headed
straight for the end of the Tian-shan range. After passing
over the plain for fifteen miles, we struck a path and followed
it along till 11.30 p.m., when we halted to cook some food and
rest the camels. It was of no use pitching camp, for there
was neither water, fuel, nor grass ; not a bush, nor a plant,
nor a blade of grass — absolutely nothing but gravel. I lay
down on the ground and slept till Liu-san brought me some
soup and tinned beef. We started again at 4 a,m., and marched
till 3.15 p.m. through the most desolate country I have ever
seen. Nothing we have passed hitherto can compare with it
— a succession of gravel ranges without any sign of life, animal
or vegetable, and not a drop of water. We were gradually
I
Digitized by
Google
114 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
descending to a very low level, the sun was getting higher
and higher, and the wind hotter and hotter, until I shrank
from it as from the blast of a furnace. Only the hot winds of
the Punjab can be likened to it Fortunately we still had
some water in the casks, brought from our last camping-
ground, and we had some bread, so we were not on our last
legs ; but it was a trying enough march for the men, and much
more so for the camels, for they had nothing to eat or drink*
and the heat both days was extreme. We at last reached a
well among some trees. The guide called the distance two
hundred and thirty li, and I reckon it at about seventy miles.
We were twenty-seven hours and three-quarters from camp,
including the halt of four and a half hours. We had descended
nearly four thousand feet, and the heat down here was very
much greater than we had yet experienced. We were encamped
on the dry bed of a river, on the skirts of what looked like a
regular park — the country being covered with trees, and the
ground with long coarse grass. It was most striking, as on the
other bank of the river there was not a vestige of vegetation.
We had taken on a Mongol guide, and I had told him to
keep a look-out for Ovis poll. Shortly after we left our last
camp among the low hills, he gave a shout, and darted off at a
heap of sticks, and extricated two pairs of Ovis poll horns.
One a magnificent pair, which measured fifty-two and fifty-four
inches respectively. These I took on, and left the other pair,
which measured only forty-three inches. The large pair
measured nineteen inches round the base — as thick as my
thigh. The Mongol guide said this was a hiding-place for the
hunters. It was placed fifty yards from some water, where
the animals came to drink. I asked the guide if he had seen
wild camels about here ; he said, " Any amount," and that he
had some young ones at his yurt, and also some skins.
What a chance I had missed I for his tent was only ten miles
off our camp at Ula-khutun. Further on in the desert of
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A PERIOD OF DEPRESSION. 115
Zungaria we passed a track which he said was that of a
wild camel. It was smaller than the tame camel's footprint,
and, as it was a single track and leading straight across our
line of march right up the desert of Zungaria — from nowhere
to nowhere — and miles from any camping-spot, it was not likely
±0 have been anything else but that of a wild camel.
During this march my Chinese rather came to grief. I had
'been walking, and wanted to ride, so I said to the guide, " Yau
<:hi " (** Want to ride "). The guide was eating some bread, and
laughed at me,'shaking his head. I got rather angry at this,
and repeated, " Yau chi," at which he shook his head again and
pointed to my camel. My boy now shouted out to him, and
he then at once dismounted and seated my camel for me.
It then struck me that "chi" also means "to eat," and he
had thought I meant I wanted some of his bread, and had
pointed to my saddle-bags, where I had my own. I ought to
bave said " Yau chi " in a surprised tone, whereas (not being in
my usual amiable state of mind) I had said it in an angary tone,
and the meaning was immediately altered from "I want to
ride" to "I want to eat" Such are some of the intricacies of
the Chinese language.
After this long and trying march we (or I, at any rate)
scarcely got a wink of sleep, for the heat was stifling, without a
•breath of air, and I was lying on the ground in a Kabul tent,
pestered by a plague of sandflies, which got into my eyes, nose,
and everywhere. That was the most despairing time of my
whole journey, and many times that night I accused myself of
being the greatest fool yet created, and swore by all the gods
I would never go wandering about the wild places of the earth
again. These periods of depression must occur to every
traveller. He cannot help asking himself now and then,
" What's the good of it all ? " But 'tis always darkest before
the dawn, and I could just see the first glimmering of awaken-
ing day — ^the snowy summits of the " Heavenly Mountains "
Digitized by
Google
ii6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
were rising above me. There was still some hard and trying
work to be done, though. As the sun rose next morning a
breeze sprang up which drove away the sandflies, but the heat
became intense. In spite of it we had to start at 1.30 in the
afternoon, and march till three the next morning.
For nearly two miles we passed through a country well
covered with trees, and patches of coarse grass and bushes.
The soil was partly clay and partly sand. This ended as
suddenly as it had begun, and we passed over the gravel desert
again, where there was no vestige of grass or scrub. The hot
wind blowing off this seemed absolutely to scorch one up ; but
yesterday's order of things were now reversed — ^we were
ascending while the sun was descending, and it gradually
became cooler.
About ten at night we suddenly found ourselves going
over turf, with bushes and trees on either side, and a shrill
clear voice hailed us from the distance. We halted, and the
guide answered, and the stranger came up and turned out
to be a Turki woman, who led us through the bushes over
some cultivated ground to a house, the first I had seen for
nearly a thousand miles.
It was the first sign that I had entered a new land —
Turkestan — the mysterious land which I had longed for many
a day to see. Flowing by the house was a little stream of the
most delicious water. It was scarcely a yard broad, but it was
not a mere trickle like the others we had passed in the Gobi,
but was flowing rapidly, with a delightful gurgling noise, and
was deep enough for me to scoop up water between my two
hands. I gulped down mouthful after mouthful of it, and
enjoyed such a drink as I had not had for many a long day, and
as I lay down on the grass on its bank while the water-casks
were being filled, I thought the trials of the desert journey were
nearly over. But they were not quite ; hardly fifty yards from
the stream the vegetation disappeared, and we were again on
Digitized by
Google
i887.] IN TURKESTAN. I17
gravel desert, and we had still to travel for five hours,
gradually ascending as before — ^at twelve passing through a
gorge two and a half miles long, in a range of little hills
running parallel to the slope. We halted as the day was
dawning, on a part of the slope where there was enough scrub
for fuel and for the animals to eat. No water.
Next day we continued to ascend the long lower slopes of
the Tian-shan, gradually rounding the eastern extremity of
these mountains. We passed a cart-track leading from Barkul
to Hami, which makes this detour round the Tian-shan to
avoid crossing them. The going was bad on account of the
stones, and because the whole slope was cut up by dry water-
courses. These were seldom more than a foot deep, but the
slope was covered with them. They were formed by the
natural drainage from the mountains, which, instead of running
in deep valleys, spreads over the slope. The whole country
was still barren, being covered with scrub only; but in the
depression at the foot of the slope was a small Turki village,
surrounded with trees and cultivation.
That night we encamped near a Turki house called Morgai,
surrounded with fields of wheat and rice, watered from a small
stream which appeared above the surface just here, and which,
lower down, spread out and was swallowed in the pebbly slopes
of the mountain.
The following morning I, for the first time, had an oppor-
tunity of examining more closely one of this new race of people
through whose country I was about to travel for fifteen hundred
miles or so. The men were tall and fine-looking, with more of
the Mongol caste of feature about them than I had expected.
Their faces, however, though somewhat round, were slightly more
elongated than the Mongols, and there was considerably more
intelligence about them. But there was more roundness and
less intelligence, less sharpness in the outlines than is seen in
the inhabitants of the districts about Kashgar and Yarkand.
Digitized by
Google
Ii8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
In fact, afterwards, in the bazaar at Hami, I could easily dis-
tinguish a Kashgari from an inhabitant of the eastern end of
Turkestan.
As I proceeded westward I noticed a gradual, scarcely per-
ceptible change from the round of a Mongolian type to a
sharper and yet more sharp type of feature. Whether this is
accidental, or whether it is brought about by the commingling
of separate races, I know not ; but I think I am not wrong in
stating that the further east one goes, the rounder and broader
are the faces of the inhabitants, and the further west one goes
the longer and narrower they become.
This may perhaps be accounted for in this way. As is well
known, Mongolia was formerly occupied to a large extent by
Turks (Uigars), but these were driven out by the Mongols, who
finally, under Chingiz-Khan and his successors, overspread the
whole of Turkestan and the countries to the west. Manchuria,,
however, the original home of the Tartars, was never inhabited
by Turks ; and in Eastern Mongolia we see the truest type
of Tartar feature. In Western Mongolia the features are
somewhat (though not very much) longer and narrower.
In the eastern part of Turkestan there is a decided change
towards the Turanian type, but still the round, broad Tartar
features are very prominent; and then as we proceed west-
ward, and get further away from Mongolia into the lands where
the Mongols, or Moghuls, as they are also called, and Turks
have lived together, and are now merged into one race, we
notice that their faces become gradually longer and narrower ;
and further west still, among some of the inhabitants of Afghan
Turkestan, numbers of whom may be seen in Kashgar and
Yarkand, we see that the Tartar or Mongol type of feature is
almost entirely lost
Here at Morgai, too, I saw the Turki women. Very different
they were from the doll-like Chinese women, with painted faces,
waddling about on contorted feet; from the sturdy, bustling
Digitized by
Google
i887.] TURKI WOMEN, 119
Manchu women, and from the simple, silly Mongol girls with
their great red cheeks and dirty, unintelligent faces. These
Turkis were fine, handsome women, with complexions not
much darker than Greeks or Spaniards. They had good colour
on their cheeks, and their eyes were dark and full. Their whole
appearance was most picturesque, for they had a fine, dignified
bearing, and were dressed in a long loose robe not confined at
the waist, their long black tresses allowed to fall over their
shoulders, only fastened at the ends into two thick plaits ; on
their head, slightly inclined backwards, they wore a bright red
cap, which set off their whole appearance very effectively.
They stared with great astonishment at the sudden appear-
ance of a white man (though I fancy at that time my face was
not quite as white as an Englishman's generally is). But we had
not much time to examine each other's charms, for I had that
day to cross the Tian-shan.
Starting early, we ascended the stream, but it soon dis-
appeared again, and we saw nothing more of it The hillsides
were at first rather bare, but the higher we got the greener they
became; and after five or six miles were covered with rich
green turf, most delightful to look upon after the bare hills of
the Gobi ; while here and there through an opening in the hills
we could catch a glimpse of the snowy peaks above. There
are, however, no trees nor even bushes, either on the hills or in
the valleys. I was told we should probably see some Ovis
argaliy so I went on ahead with my carbine and telescope.
By the roadside we passed several horns of the Ovis argali,
and two other kinds of wild sheep or goat, Ovis argali being
the most common.
In the bed of the stream I found a magnificent Ovis argali
head, measuring* fifty-six inches, and put it in triumph on a
camel ; but a few miles further on I rejected it with scorn, when,
lying on a rock, I saw a huge head, one horn of which measured
sixty-two inches. Both horns were in almost perfect condition.
Digitized by
Google
I20 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. v.
* — — ^ —— — ——— — .
and were still on the skull, so that I had the whole thing com-
plete. The guide said it was as big a one as was to be got
All the Ovis argali horns I saw to-day were different from
those which I saw on the Altai Mountains. The latter were
thicker at the base (nineteen inches round as against sixteen),
and they were more rounded, and not so much twisted. The
Mongol says the sheep are the same.
We crossed the range at a height of eight thousand feet.
Except the last half-mile the ascent was not steep, but led
gradually up a narrow valley. The last mile or two was over
soft gfreen turf, and near the summit there was a perfect mass of
flowers, chiefly forget-me-nots ; and I am sure I shall not forget
for a very long time the pleasure it was, seeing all this rich
profusion of flowers and grass, in place' of those dreary gravel
slopes of the Gobi Desert, The sun had now set, and I climbed
a neighbouring peak as a last hope of seeing an Ovis argali^
but there was not a sign of one. There was no great view
from the summit, as higher peaks rose all round, and I could
only just catch a glimpse of the plain to the south, which
was covered with a distant haze.
There were still no trees to be seen, and a curious charac-
teristic of these hills is that there is absolutely no water. For
twelve miles from Morgai to the summit of the pass we had
not seen a drop of water. From this absence of water the
valleys were not deep— not more than five or six hundred feet
below the summit of the hills on either side — nor were the hill-
sides remarkably steep, as in the Himalayas. They are grassy
slopes with rocks cropping out at their summits, and here and
there on their sides. Five miles on the southern side a small
stream appeared, and the valley bottom was partitioned off into
fields, round which irrigation ducts had been led; but these
were all now deserted, and the water was wasted in flowing over
uncultivated fields. Trees now began to appear near the
stream, and at ii.io p.m. we pitched camp on a little grassy
Digitized by
Google
<
H
o
H
X
H
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
188;.] LAST STAGE OF DESERT JOURNEY. 121
plot near a stream of cold clear water, and under a small grove
of trees. It really seemed the height of bliss— a perfect
paradise, and the desert journey a terrible nightmare behind
me. The singing of the birds, too, struck me very much ;
for in the Gobi there was always a death-like silence, and so
I noticed the continued twitter which the birds kept up.
Trees were more numerous now, and on the northern slopes of
some of the hills I even saw some patches of pine forests.
I was hoping, after crossing the Tian-shan, to come upon a
comparatively well-populated country, with a fair extent of
cultivated land; but was disappointed at finding the same
barren desert as before, with, however, a small oasis every
fifteen or twenty miles. The inhabitants were principally
Tunganis and Chinese, and looked very poor ; but the Turkis
were all fine, healthy-looking men.
On July 22 we passed a small square-walled town called
Ching-cheng, surrounded by fields of wheat and some good
grass land, but when these ended the desert began again directly.
A long way oflf over the desert we could see a couple of
poplar trees rising out of the plain. These poplars are very
common all over Chinese Turkestan, and they make excellent
landmarks. We reached these at twelve at night, and found a
few soldiers stationed there, who said that Hami was still a
long way off. Now, as my constant inquiry for the last month
had been, " How far are we from Hami ? " and as the guide for
the last few days had each time said we were only sixty miles
off, I was rather exasperated to find that, instead of having
ten or twenty miles more to get over, there was still a good
fifty. So on striking camp at two the following afternoon, I
told my men that my tent would not be pitched again till
Hami was re.ached, so they had better prepare themselves for a
good march. We travelled on all through the afternoon — a
particularly hot one ; then the sun set before us, and still we
went on and on through the night till it rose again behind us.
Digitized by
Google
122 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. v.
We halted for a couple of hours by the roadside to ease the
camels, and then set out again. At eight o'clock the desert
ended, and we began to pass through cultivated land, and at
last we saw Hami in the distance, and after traversing a tract of
country covered with more ruined than inhabited houses, we
reached an inn at 1 1 a.m., and it was with unspeakable relief
that I dismounted from my camel for the last time.
My desert journey was now over, and I had accomplished
the 125s miles from Kwei-hwa-cheng in just seventy days; in
the last week of which I had travelled 224 miles, including the
crossing of the Tian-shan Mountains.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER VI.
THROUGH TURKESTAN TO YARKAND.
My first inquiries after arrival were as to whether Colonel Bell
had arrived I had reached here some weeks later than the
appointed date on which we were to have met, but still he had
had a long round to travel, and might have been late too. I
was told that he had passed through about three weeks before,,
and it was a marvel to me how he had managed to travel so
quickly. But there is probably no faster or better traveller
than Colonel Bell. He has travelled in Persia, Asia Minor,
Beluchistan, Burma, and China, besides this present journey
that he was engaged in ; and those who have read the accounts
of these travels know that there are few, if any, Europeans who
have seen and done and recorded more than Colonel BelL
My next inquiries were as to the means of reaching
Kashgar, and the time it would take to get there. Difficulties,
of course, arose at first. It was the hot season, and carters
would not hire out their carts. In any case it would take
seventy days to reach there, and this would bring us to the end
of September, with the whole of the Himalayas to cross before
winter.
In the evening I took a stroll through the town, and found
all the bustle of life customary to a small trading centre.
Hami is a small town of perhaps five or six thousand in-
habitants. There are fairly good shops, and a busy bazaar,
where one sees people of many nationalities meeting together —
Digitized by
Google
124 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
Chinese, Mongols, Kalmacs, Turkis, and others. Large heavily
laden travelling carts would come lumbering through, and
strings of camels from across the desert
I was looking out for a shop where it was said Russian
goods could be bought When I found it, I noticed Russian
characters above, and on looking behind the counter was both
surprised and delighted to see a Russian. He shook hands
very heartily with me, and asked me to come inside. He spoke
neither Chinese nor English, but only Russian and Mongol, and
as I could speak neither of those languages, we had to com-
municate with each other through a Chinaman, who spoke
Mongol. This Russian lived in a Chinese house, in Chinese
fashion, but was dressed in Eiwopean clothes. On the walls of
his room I noticed a flaring picture entitled, the "Prince of
Wales in India," in which everybody had a vermilion com-
plexion, and was dressed in a most gorgeous and impossible
uniform. He told me that trading at this place was not very
profitable. He sold chiefly cotton goods and iron-ware, such
as pails, basins, knives, etc. There had been five Russian
merchants here, but two had gone to Kobolo, and two were
engaged in hunting down Chinese mandarins, to try and get
money which was owing to them.
The next evening I invited the Russian round to my inn to
dinner. Conversation was difficult, but we managed to spend a
very pleasant evening, and drank to the health of our respective
sovereigns. I held up my glass and said, " Czar," and we drank
together. Then I held it up again and said, " Skobeleff," and
so on through every Russian I had heard of. My guest, I am
sorry to say, knew very few Englishmen, but he had grasped
the fact that we had a queen, so at five-minute intervals he
would drink to her Majesty.
Three years later, when I was at Kashgar, I heard that two
Russian merchants residing at Ham! had been imprisoned by
the Chinese authorities, and treated in the most terrible
Digitized by
Google
<
H
u
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] HAMI. 125
manner by them. A European in the employ of the Chinese
heard of this, brought it to the notice of the Russian minister at
Pekin, and I believe their release was obtained, but not before
they had undergone the most fearful sufferings from hunger
and imprisonment in foul, pest-stricken dungeons. I have
often wondered whether my hearty, good-natured guest was
one of them.
Besides the native town of Hami, there is also a Chinese
walled town, about six hundred yards square, with four gate-
ways, each surmounted by a massive tower.
Sir Henry Howorth, the author of the "History of the
Mongols," asked me on my return whether I had noticed
any old ruins at Hami. All the country round Hami is
covered with ruins, but mostly of mud-constructed buildings,
the age of which it is impossible to conjecture. I did not
look out for anything special, and the only remarkable ruins I
remember were those of what appeared to be an old temple
with a dome of green glazed tiles.
We halted four days at Hami, and made a new start for
Kashgar — the second great stage of the journey — on July 8.
It appeared that carts could be taken the whole way, so camels
were no longer required, and I was fortunate in being able to
effect an excellent arrangement with my "boy" Liu-san, by
which he engaged to land me at Kashgar by contract on a
certain date. I was to be regarded as a piece of merchandise
to be carted from one place to the other, and he was to under-
take the whole of the arrangement He was to land me and
my baggage at Kashgar in forty days, and was to be paid
seventy taels (about £17 los,) here at Hami, and thirty taels
more if we reached Kashgar in that time. He was to receive
two taels extra for every day in advance of that time, and
two taels would be deducted for every day more than the
forty days. This arrangement fully answered my expectations.
The money which was to be made for transport went into
Digitized by
Google
126 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. VI.
my "boy*s," and not into some outsider's pocket, so that he at
once became directly interested in the journey. And, in order
to get along quickly, instead of having to go through all that
irritating and irksome process of perpetually nagging away
at the servants and pony-men, which utterly destroys all the
•charm of travel, I could go about with my mind at rest,
well assured that my " boy " would be worrying at me to get
up early in the morning, not to delay at starting, and to
go on for another few miles instead of halting at a tempting
place in the evening. I became an impassive log, and
enjoyed myself immensely. It was quite a new sensation to
be able to lie lazily on in bed while breakfast was being got
ready ; at the end of breakfast to find everything prepared
for the start ; and all the way through to have an enthusiastic
and energetic servant constantly urging me to go on further
and quicker.
The "boy," with the advance he had received from me,
bought up a cart and four animals (two mules and two ponies),
and this carried all the baggage and supplies of the party,
while I rode a pony. The cart was of the description known
in Turkestan as an araba, a large covered cart, with only one
pair of very high wheels. One animal was in the shafts, and
three tandem fashion in front. The weight of the baggage,
supplies, etc (including a certain amount of grain for the
animals), which the cart carried, was one thousand five hundred
catties (two thousand pounds).
Our start from Hami was made at eight in the evening.
For half an hour we passed through cultivated lands, and
then were in the dead desert again. Away on our right
were the Tian-shan Mountains, but they looked quite bare,
and no snowy peaks were visible ; to the left all was desert.
At about twenty miles we passed a small village called
Ta-pu-ma, with the ruins of some barracks; and halted at
4-20 on the following morning at Eurh-pu, a pretty little
Digitized by
Google
i887.] A DREARY LAND. 127
village surrounded with orchards, the trees of which were
covered with apples.
There were so many ruined houses that it is hard to say
how many inhabited dwellings there were — probably about
twenty. The inhabitants were both Chinese and Kalmaks.
The inn was a very poor one, the rooms being low and dirty,
with no windows or doors, and only an open doorway. The
kang was very dirty and made of mud, and not even covered
with matting. The roof was composed of grass laid across
beams of wood, which let both rain and sun through.
Cloudy day and slight rain during the night of 7-8th.
Thermometer — max., 90*"; min., 66".
July 9. — Started at 2.30. A thunderstorm delayed us for
half an hour. The desert began again almost immediately
after leaving Eurh-pu, but it is not so bad as the Gobi.
There was a fair amount of grass and scrub, but it was
unfitted for cultivation. Nearer the mountains there appeared
to be villages, and, after going a few miles, we saw on the
left a small green plain, with a fair-sized village and several
streams running down towards it
At forty li we passed the village of S'an-pu, which also
had the ruins of a barracks, and on the western side were two
tombs of Chinese military mandarins, who had died in the
war. They were not handsome tombs, but they were very
conspicuous, as they were from fifty to sixty feet high. They
were built of brick, and in good preservation. All other
buildings were made of mud. For the rest of the way we
passed over desert, occasionally passing a house on a small
stream or spring in a hollow. There is a sort of half-dead
air about this country ; for every inhabited house, at least
two in ruins are to be seen. In passing through villages,
scarcely an inhabitant 'is met with, and in the fields no one
seems to be working. If I had come from anywhere else but
the Gobi, I should probably have found it extremely depressing.
Digitized by
Google
128 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. vi.
The villages look very pretty at a distance, surrounded, as
they are, with trees and green fields, forming a contrast
to the neighbouring desert ; but as they are approached they
are seen to contain so many ruins and patches of ground
formerly cultivated and now lying fallow, that the charm is
lost We halted at 11.30, at San-to-lin-tzu, a small village
with four inns. As my boy said that fleas were very numerous
in the rooms, I slept in the cart, where it was also a good
deal cooler.
Day fine generally, with thunderstorm at noon. Ther-
mometer — max., 96° ; min., 66".
July ID. — Left at 2.30 p.m., and passed over a stony
plain gradually ascending towards the mountains. The slope
was cut up by dry watercourses running down from the hills.
At thirteen miles we passed a house surrounded with cultiva-
tion, forming a small oasis. There was a comparatively large
plot of poppies, though one would have thought that in a
desert like this all the land capable of cultivation would be
needed for the production of necessaries. Shortly after, we
passed twelve donkeys, laden with merchandise, going to
Hami. We met little traffic on the road.
Halted at 10.30 p.m., at Lain-tung, a small settlement of
inns, no cultivation. They had here some coal which was
obtained from the Tian-shan. My boy told me coal could
be obtained at Hami also, but I saw none myself. Distance
ninety li.
Cloudy day. Thunderstorms on surrounding hills. Ther-
mometer — max., 86° ; min., 68**.
July II. — We only halted at Lain-tung to feed the
animals, and started again at 2.20 a.m. We gradually
ascended the mountain slope in a transverse direction. The
ground was a good deal cut up by dry watercourses, and
was covered with stones, which delayed the carts.
Halted at 9 am. at I-wang-chuen, which consists of
Digitized by
Google
188;.] ''THE GREAT ENGLISH NATIONS 129
one house and an inn in the midst of bare hills. There was
no cultivation or pasturage. The inn was occupied by a
military mandarin from Urumchi, who had with him a number
of soldiers, so there was no room for our party. We drew
up the cart a little beyond, and the boy cooked a meal, which
I ate in the cart These big carts are very comfortable. I
have a mattress spread out on the top of all the baggage, so
that I or the boy can lie down at any time. I sleep in the
cart at night, and the boy occupies it during the marches.
July II. — We started again at 2.55 p.m., passing through
a hilly country, very bare, and covered, as usual, with gravel.
I saw two Ouis argali horns, but they were of small size.
Halted at 7.15 at Ch6-ku-lu-chuen (fifty H) — a house and an
inn in a gorge, which we had been descending for rather over
a mile. Still no cultivation, and everything very brown and
sterile. Had tea, and slept, as usual, in the cart The boy
would not sleep in the rooms of the inn, because the soldiers
were to return here from the last stage, and he says they
would turn him out and steal his things. They are a bad
lot, apparently. They were civil enough to me, though. They
mistook me for a Russian, but when I said I was English,
they said, '*0h! you belong to the great English nation."
Every one here speaks of the great English nation. Russian,
French, and English, are the only European nations they seem
to know. Dull day, but no rain ; cool.
July 12. — Started at 4.40 a.m., passing down the gorge
for four miles. The gorge was from fifty to one hundred yards
broad, the hills being from one hundred to one hundred and
fifty feet above it. The bottom was fine gravel, and the hills
rocky and stony. After emerging from this, we still continued
down the slope of gravel from the range, and nine miles further
on crossed a plain covered with a light clay soil, bearing plenty
of shrubs and trees, but no grass. The plain is surrounded
on all sides by hills, and, if there were a more plentiful rainfall
K
Digitized by
Google
I30 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
in this country, would form a lake, but there was no sign of
water. One mile beyond, the road divided, the right-hand
one going to Urumchi. We halted at 12.10 at Tuan-yen-kou
(no li), a house and inn situated at the foot of the range,
which forms the western boundary of the plain. Water here
particularly bad, and smelt horribly. Quite a good inn for these
parts, as one room in three had a door to it — no windows yet,
though, and during a thunderstorm the rain came through the
roof as through a sieve. Started at 5.20, turning off in a south-
westerly direction, and still passing over the plain for four miles,
when we ascended the stony slope of the surrounding hills.
It was a long trying pull of about nine miles, not steep, but
continuous. We passed thirty donkeys, laden with grapes
from the Turfan district, going to Hami. Donkeys are very
plentiful in this country, and seem to be the only animals
used for packs. The Turkis are very seldom seen on a pony ;
it is always a donkey they ride. At 10 p.m. we reached the
end of the slope and entered the hills, descending very
gradually down a gorge in a direction somewhat south of west
There were two or three houses at the entrance, but no inn.
As usual, the hills were perfectly bare. Halted at 3.20 a.m.
(13th) at Hsi-yang-chfi. From 4.40 a.m. on the 12th to 3.20
a.m. on the 13th we have done 230 li, travelling seventeen hours
twenty minutes, and resting five hours ten minutes. The two
cart-mules went well throughout, the ponies not so well. These
mules are certainly very good for cart work. Cloudy day
Thunderstorm in afternoon. Cool night.
July 13. — We started at 1240 p.m., descending at first a
narrow and precipitous gorge. The hills on either side rose
in cliffs of six or seven hundred feet high. After two and a
half miles, we left the hills and descended a barren, gravelly
slope. At 10 p.m. we passed a deserted inn where the road
divided, and the carter was uncertain which to take. We
wandered about the plain for some hours, and then I ordered
Digitized by
Google
l887.] KASHGARIAN INNS. 131
a halt till daylight. I did not feel at all comfortable, for we
had no water with us, and the mules and ponies cannot go on,
like camels, without it. As far as we could see while daylight
lasted, the desert extended in all directions. When dawn broke,
however, we saw trees in the distance, and the carter recognized
his whereabouts. Our misfortunes were not yet quite over, for
the cart stuck in a hole when we were close to the village,
and we took nearly two hours getting it out. We finally
reached Shi-ga-tai at 7.20 a.m. (14th). There is -here a
small fort built on a mound, occupied by a hundred Chinese
soldiers. It has mud walls about twenty feet high, loopholed
for musketry, but it is commanded at three hundred yards by
a hill on the south. The village consists of some thirty houses,
inhabited partly by Chinese and partly by Turkis. There is
a little cultivation and some pasturage round the village. Day
fine in the morning, thunderstorms falling in the neighbour-
hood in the afternoon.
July 14. — Started at 3.25 p.m., and crossed a desert with
occasional oases every four or five miles. To the south are
ranges of bare hills, some fifty to one hundred and fifty feet
high, running parallel to the road. At two miles from Pi-chan
the desert ended, and the country was covered with trees,
cultivation, and small hamlets. The road was every here and
there lined with rows of trees on either side. We lost the track
again, and went wandering round the country till 1.30 a.m.,
when we arrived at the gate of the town, which we found shut
It was, however, opened for us, and we put up at a good inn —
good only as inns go in Kashgaria. The smallest village in
Manchuria would not call such a place an inn. There they
put up cows in such places as these. Day very hot, thunder-
storms as usual on the Tian-shan in the afternoon, and very
slight rain fell down here at night.
July 15. — Pi-chan is surrounded by a wall about four hundred
yards in length in each direction. It contains about two
Digitized by
Google
132 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
thousand inhabitants. In the only real street are a few shops,
small, but clean, in which are sold ordinary articles of
dress and consumption. Some are kept by Chinese, and
some by Turkis. The Turkis here seem more well-to-do
than at Hami ; they are better dressed, and their houses are
larger and cleaner. The women usually wear a long red gown
and trousers. They tie a bright-coloured cloth round their
head, but I have seen none of those big globe-shaped caps they
wore at Hami. Started at 1.40 p.m., leaving Pi-chan by the
north gate, and passing for two and a half miles through a very
pretty, well-cultivated country, through which ran a charming
little stream, its banks lined with graceful poplars and willows.
Numerous little irrigation ducts were carried through the fields
and straight across the road, rather to the hindrance of traffic ;
but now it is a positive pleasure to hear the cart splashing
through water. There are a number of little hamlets dotted
over the plain, and many mosques, all built of mud like
everything else in the country. Many of them had piles of
Ovis argali and ibex horns on the ledges of the roofs, but I
saw no Ovis argali as fine as those which I obtained in the Gobi.
At two and a half miles from Pi-chan the delightful piece
of country came to an end abruptly, and we were on the same
dreary old gravel desert again. From a piece of rising ground
I obtained a good view of the country we had been passing
through. It was extremely pretty. The plain, some six miles
in length from east to west, and three or four from north to
south, was covered over with trees, beneath the shade of which
nestled the little Turki hamlets. About a mile to the south
of Pi-chan was a range of sandhills like that which I saw
in the Gobi, but of a darker colour and not so high. The
afternoon was terribly hot on the gravelly desert, and, after
passing over it for sixteen miles, we were glad enough to come
upon another oasis. We halted at 8.15 at Liang-ming-chang
(seventy li), a pretty village built on the steep bank of a little
Digitized by
Google
i887.] A TURK I INN. 133
stream. There was a bustling landlord at the inn, who came
out to meet us, and attended to us more in the Manchurian inn-
keeper style than in the usual listless way they have here.
I slept on the ground in the inn yard, as it was too hot
even in the cart There is one good point to be noted of this
country — ^there are no mosquitoes or flies in number enough
to trouble one. If there were, travelling in this heat would
be almost unbearable. I should feel very much inclined to
take myself off to the snowy Tian-shan Mountains which
accompany us march by march, exhibiting their cool, refreshing
peaks in the most tantalizing way to us perspiring mortals
down below here.
July 16. — Started at 1.45 a.m., and entered the desert
again at a mile from Liang-ming-chang, The road was very
heavy on account of the sand. We passed several rows of
holes dug in the ground. They were in long lines, the holes
being about twenty yards apart, and from six to eight feet in
circumference. The earth was piled up all round, and as the
holes had been dug some time most of them had nearly
filled up again. In some, however, the sides had been built
up with wood, to form a well It looked as if an army had
pitched camp here, and had set to work to dig for water.
At seven miles from Liang-ming-chang we crossed some
low hills and entered an extensive plain, well cultivated and
covered with hamlets. This lasted for seven miles, and we
then descended a narrow valley, the hills on either side being
composed of clay, absolutely barren, and very steep and pre-
cipitous in places. A small stream ran at the bottom of the
valley, but the banks were too steep to be cultivated. We
passed a good many ruins of houses and mosques built up
against the cliffs. They had evidently been destroyed by
landslips.
Halted at 7.55 am. at Sang-ching-kou, an inn owned by
a Turki. This was the first Turki inn I had visited. The
Digitized by
Google
134 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
kang was covered with a very handsome, though rather old,
carpet.
Started again at two, leaving the gorge, and passing over
the open desert again. The stream from the gorge flowed in
a south direction, and its banks were lined with villages.
About ten miles to the south was a range of hills running
in an apparently east-by-west direction, and on the side of them
was a strip of cultivated land running up as far as Turfan.
At seven or eight miles from Lang-ching-kou the desert was
covered with hundreds of wells, said to have been dug by
Chinese soldiers. Line after line of them we passed, each
line a couple of miles or so in length, with wells dug at
intervals of twenty yards. These wells were not circular, but
rectangular, about two and a half or three feet broad and
seven or eight feet long. We could not see the bottom, but
we halted at a house where one of these wells was in use, and
this was one hundred and ten feet deep.
The origin of these wells I find it hard to explain. My
boy told me that they had been dug by a Chinese army
besieging Turfan. This army had not been able to obtain
water otherwise, and had dug these wells. I am inclined to
doubt the truth of this story, though. I would rather say
they were what are known in Persia and Afghanistan as
"karez," and intended to lead water obtainable below the
surface of the ground along underneath it down the slope
from one well to another, and so on till the level of the land
to be irrigated is reached, and the water appears at the
surface. •
We stopped at 8.15 p.m. (sixty H) at a Turki house, as
we should not be able to get into Turfan at night The water
from the well was delightfully cold, and the house clean and
cool. Half the courtyard was covered over, and in this
covered part was a low platform, on which sat the inmates of
the house at table. I spread my mattress on the floor of the
Digitized by
Google
1887.] TURFAN. 135
courtyard, and went off to sleep as fast as I could. It is a
great advantage being able to sleep at night in the open air
without any fear of mosquitoes. Weather hazy and very hot.
July 17. — Started at 3.15 a.m., still passing over desert
for four miles, and then, after crossing a small stream, we
travelled through tracts of deserted houses and burial-grounds,
with here and there an inhabited house and some cultivation.
To the left the country was covered with trees, hamlets, and
cultivation. Some three miles from Turfan we passed a
mosque with a curious tower, which looked as much like a
very fat factory chimney as anything else. It was about
eighty feet high, circular, and built of mud bricks, and it was
ornamented by placing the bricks at different angles, forming
patterns. It was built at the southern and eastern comer of
the courtyard of the mosque. The gateway was of the
ordinary Indian pattern.
As I rode past a house, an old Turki invited me in ; but
I could not delay the cart. We reached Turfan at 6 a.m.,
putting up at an inn just inside of the southern part of the
Chinese town. As I passed through the street there was a
murmur of "Oroos,*' "Oroos," and a small crowd of Turkis
and Chinese collected in the inn yard to see me. My boy
was told there was a Russian shop in the Turk city, so I went
over there with a man to guide me. We dismounted at a
shop, and I was received by a fine-looking man, who shook
hands with me and spoke to me in Russian. I told him I was
English. He then took me through a courtyard to another
courtyard with a roof of matting. On the ground were spread
some fine carpets, on which sat some fair-looking men in Turk
dress. None of them looked quite like Russians. They spoke
no language that I knew, and things were rather at a stand-
still, when I heard the word " Hindustani." I said at once,
"Hindustani zaban bol sakta" ("I can speak Hindustani"), and
they sent off for a man. When he appeared, I had a long
Digitized by
Google
136 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
talk with him. He was an Afghan merchant, he said, and
the men of this house were Andijani merchants. He had
travelled through a great part of India, and knew Bombay,
Calcutta, Delhi, Lahore, and all the cities of the Punjab.
He asked me if Peking was as big a town as Calcutta. I
said, " No, nothing like so big." He was struck at this, and
told the Andijanis of it He then asked if I had seen the
Katai-Badshah (the Chinese emperor) at Ba-jing (Peking). I
said, '* No." He then asked me how many Englishmen there
were at Peking, and if they were merchants. I said we had
an Elchi there, like the Russians, and the French, and other
European nations. Peking is so distant that these Central
Asiatic merchants do not visit it, and the only accounts they
probably have of it are from the Chinese, who exaggerate to any
extent the greatness of the capital of China and its emperor.
I asked the merchant about the trade of the place, and he
said silk was the only thing produced. These Andijani
merchants spin the silk from the cocoons, but the Chinese
manufacture it. After a time some tea was brought us. I
asked if it was Indian or Chinese. They said it was Chinese,
but Indian was to be bought in the town.
The Andijanis were tall, handsome-looking men, dressed
in long robes of cotton print, and wearing high black leather
boots with high heels — exactly the same as the Cossacks
wear, but the bottom part was not attached to the upper.
It was a slipper which they kicked off before stepping on to
the carpet, leaving the long boot still on, but with a soft,
flexible foot.
After tea I again went to the Turk city to have a look
at the shops. The chief — in fact, almost the only — articles
sold here are cotton fabrics, principally chintz. Some of them
were remarkably pretty, with patterns of flowers, and others
handkerchiefs of many colours, arranged together in patterns
very tastefully.
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A HAJJI. 137
There was also a good deal of Andijani silk of various
colours. The silk of this place was only white ; I could
find none coloured. I bought a yard, fifteen inches wide, for
sixty tael cents (about three shillings). It is very coarse.
The shops are open towards the street, but divided from it
by a counter, behind which stands the shopman, surrounded
on all sides by shelves, reaching from floor to roof, and
containing rolls of cotton fabrics or silks. These shops are ten
to twelve feet square, and are an improvement on the ordinary
bazaar of an Indian town, but not so good as the Chinese shops.
While walking about looking at the shops, I saw a man
with a difierent look to the Turks — more of the Hindustani
appearance ; so I addressed him in Hindustani, and to my
delight he answered back. He said he was an Arab Hajji
from Mecca. Some Turks, seeing us standing talking, very
politely asked us over to a shop where there was a seat, so
we had a long talk. The Hajji had travelled through India,
Afghanistan, Persia, Egypt, Turkey, and Bokhara. I asked
him ;where he was going next He said wherever Fate led
him. He was at Herat a year ago (1886), and, pointing his
two forefingers at each other and bringing them together till
they nearly touched, said that that was how the Russians
and English were then. Then he let his forefingers pass
each other, and, keeping them parallel, said that was how
Russia and England were now. He then locked his two
forefingers together, and said that was how England and the
Amir of Afghanistan were. He said that this was a poor
country — all jungle, no water, and no bread ; whereas in India
there was plenty of both. I asked him about the tribes of
this part, and he said they were Turks (I could not get a
definite name beside that). At Karashar there are Kalmaks,
and also in the mountains. The Kalmaks are Buddhists. He
asked if my boy was a Tungani, saying they were good men,
but the other Chinese very bad. (He said this, of course.
Digitized by
Google
138 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
because the Tungans are Mussulmans.) His influence seemed
to be very great. A large crowd of Turks collected round
us, but by saying a few words he kept them clear of me, and
they looked on silently. Now and then he addressed the
crowd, and explained to them who the English were. I was
glad of this, as he seemed to have a very good opinion of us,
I heard him abusing the Chinese in the most open way, as
there were several Chinamen there (Mohammedans, perhaps,
though). A man like that might do a deal of good or a deal
of harm, and I saw more clearly than before the great
influence Mohammedanism has in these countries, and how
dangerous this influence may be on occasions. The Mahdi
was probably a man very like this Arab Hajji.
The owner of the shop in which we were gave me some
tea, but I noticed the Arab took none. Whether he has caste,
as in India, and won't drink with an infidel, I don't know.
Both he and the Afghan came here from India vid Peshawur,
Kabul, and Bokhara. The Arab had been to Tashkent, and
said it was as fine a town as Bombay. I felt quite brightened
up by the conversations with these men. It was the first
time for some months that I had been able to talk at all
fluently with any one. Fancy an Englishman being so
delighted to meet an Arab and an Afghan in Turkestan,
and talking in Hindustani !
In the evening I saw two distinguished-looking men
standing about in the courtyard of my inn, evidently wishing
to see me, but not liking to intrude themselves on me as the
Chinese do ; so I went out to speak to them. They only spoke
Turki, but I was able to make out that they were Kokhandees.
Their country was Russian now, they said, and they called
it " Ferghansky." I said I was Angrez (English), but they
said at once, " Ingleesh." I got a few Turki words from them,
and then they shook hands with me and went off".
I had read in some book that at Turfan it was so hot that
Digitized by
Google
i887.] TURFAN. 139
people lived in holes underground I never quite believed
it, but to-day I found it was a real fact Here in the inn yard
is a narrow flight ;of steps leading underground. I went down
them, and found a room with a kang, and a Chinaman lying
on it smoking opium. It was perfectly cool below there,
and there was no musty smell, for the soil is extremely dry.
The room was well ventilated by means of a hole leading up
through the roof.
Turfan consists of two distinct towns, both walled — ^the
Chinese and the Turk, the latter situated about a mile west
of the former. The Turk town is the most populous, having
probably twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants, while the
Chinese town has not more than five thousand at the outside.
The town is about eight hundred yards square. As usual,
there are four gateways — N., S., E., and W. These are of solid
brickwork, with massive wooden doors plated with iron. The
gateway is covered by a semicircular bastion. The walls
are in good repair. They are built of mud, and are about
thirty-five feet high, twenty to thirty feet thick, and loopholed
at the top. Outside the main wall is a level space fifteen yards
wide, and then a musketry wall eight feet high, and immediately
beyond it a ditch twelve feet deep and twenty feet wide.
Over the gateways are drum towers. At the corners are
small square towers, and between the corners and the gateways
are small square bastions, two to each front.
There are few shops in the Chinese town, and those not
good. Turfan is a "Ting" town. This town and its neigh-
bourhood lies at an extremely low altitude. My barometer
here read 29*48. My thermometer was broken, so that I
cannot record the temperature, but it may be taken at between
90° and ico° — say 95°. Turfan must be between two and
three hundred feet below the level of the sea.* It is very
* This depression was also noticed by Colonel Bell before my visit, and its
existence has since been confirmed by Russian travellers.
Digitized by
Google
HO THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. VI.
remarkable that such a depression snould occur so far inland
in the heart of a continent
July 1 8. — Started at 5.10 p.m., passing out of the Chinese
town by the west gate and through the Turk town, after which
we turned off south, passing over a plain with a good deal of
cotton planted on it. Wheat has now nearly ail been reaped.
The poppy crop is also over. At five miles we rounded the
end of a low spur running down from the Tian-shan, and
passed over a level valley covered with scrub, but uncultivated.
A tremendous wind was blowing, making our progress very slow,
so we halted at 1 1 p.m,, at a solitary inn, sixty li from Turfan.
July 19. — Started at 3 a.m., still crossing the plain, gradually
approaching a line of cultivation to our left. Halted at 8.30
a.m., at Toksun. This is a small town, or rather two small
towns, both walled, each about a quarter of a mile square, and
half a mile apart There is a small garrison here, probably
four or five hundred men. The shops are small. Here
and at Turfan grapes and melons are very plentiful. The
Turfan grapes are very good, and nearly equal to those
grown in English hothouses. They are large, very fleshy, and
full of flavour. One kind is elongated, and some of them are
one and a half to one and three-quarter inch long.
Started again at 3.40 p.m., in a southerly direction. The
cultivation lasted for a mile, and then gave place to scrub,
which three miles further ceased, and we ascended the bare
gravelly slope of a range to the south. The gravel was mixed
with sand, and loose, so the going was very heavy, and we
got along slowly. Here, as at all the difficult pieces along
the road, skeletons of horses were numerous, and we also passed
two human skeletons. At sixteen miles from Toksun, we
entered the hills, perfectly bare, as usual, and four miles further
halted at an inn on a small stream.
Weather to-day cooler ; very strong westerly wind.
July 20. — Started at 5.30 a,m., and had a very long hard
Digitized by
Google
1 887.] DIFFICULT TRAVELUNG,
141
day's work, ascending the bed of a stream covered with loose
shingle. We got the cart along by a succession of rushes — the
carter on one side and the^ boy on the other, urging the animals
for a short time, then stopping, then making another spurt,
and so on. We should have thought nothing of this in
Manchuria, but there the mules had less to pull. The stream,
like others in these mountains, has a peculiar course. At the
lower end of the gorge no stream was visible. As we ascended,
a small trickle appeared, which gradually increased in size to
a small stream, and then suddenly disappeared again beneath
the gravel. We halted for a couple of hours where it was
last visible, twelve miles from the inn, and fed the animals.
In the afternoon we had the same hard pull up the gorge.
On either hand were bare precipitous hills, eighteen hundred
or two thousand feet high.
We halted at 6 p.m., at a spring of clear cold water at the
base of a cliff. It came on to rain heavily later, but I was
snug inside the cart, the boy slept underneath it, and the carter
in a hollow of the cliff. One can make one's self very com-
fortable in the cart, with a mattress spread over the baggage
and a waterproof sheet hung across the front.
Weather to-day cool ; rain in the evening,
July 21. — We had now a very nasty piece to cross. A
landslip had fallen right across the stream, which was blocked
by huge boulders. We unloaded the cart, and put the baggage
on the mules* backs and took it across to the other side.
This they did in two or three trips, and then returned for the
empty cart, which the two mules, two ponies, and two men
managed with the greatest difficulty to get over the boulders.
The cart was then reloaded, and we set off again, ploughing
through the shingle, but not for long, for another landslip
blocked the way, and the cart had to be unloaded again.
We finally reached an inn, only one and a half mile from our
camping-place of last night, in seven and a half hours. In
Digitized by
Google
142 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
the inn was a Su-chou merchant who had seen Colonel Bell
at that place. The name of this inn was Wu-hau-pu-la.
Started again at 5.25 p.m. The shingle soon became firmer,
and the hills less precipitous and more open. At nine miles
from Wu-hau-pu-la we reached the summit of the range. The
descent was easier. At sixty li we passed an inn, but continued
through the night, emerging from the hills and descending the
gravel slope to Kumesha, a hamlet of some twenty houses,
and also barracks, in which a detachment of soldiers were
stationed. Water obtained from a small spring and stream.
Weather cool, and at night almost cold. Near the top of the
pass I saw an ibex horn measuring thirty-two inches.
July 22. — Started at 3 p.m., crossing a plain between two
parallel ranges of hills, the southern being from one to two
miles, and the northern from ten to twelve miles distant
The plain was covered with scrub. At sixteen miles from
Kumesha we entered the southern range by a gorge through
which ran a stream, now dry. Going heavy. Halted at 9.35
at Yu-fu-kou, an inn and a small custom-house (sixty li).
Weather cool ; wind northerly.
July 23. — Started at 4.30 a.m., ascending the bed of the
stream for two and a half miles, the hills gradually opening
out. The road then emerges on to a plain sloping very gradu-
ally toward the south, and bounded at a distance of about ten
miles by a low range of hills. This plain is crossed in a
direction west by south. At fifteen miles a small hut and
well are passed. Halted at 2.30 at Ush-ta-le (Chinese pro-
nunciation), Ushak-tae on Russian map, a village situated on
the level at the foot of the sloping plain we had been descend-
ing. We had been told that this was a big place, but it
does not boast more than fifty houses. Bread, however, was
to be bought here, and eggs were thirteen for five tael cents
(threepence) instead of only five, as at Kumesha, There is
a small fortified barrack to the west of the village.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] KARASHAR. 143
Started again at 8.15 p.m., passing over a plain covered
with bushes and some trees. At two miles we crossed a small
river, broad and shallow, running over a pebbly bed. This
is the first stream of any size which I have crossed for nearly
two thousand miles. At ten miles further we crossed another
small river. These run down from the mountains four or five
miles to the north, emptying themselves into a lake to the
south. Twenty miles from Ush-ta-le we entered a country
thickly covered with trees, like a park, with long coarse grass
in tufts, and many small streams. The rainfall here must be
considerably more than further east The soil is sandy and
apparently not worth cultivating, as we only passed one small
hamlet, six and a half miles from Ching-shiu-kou, where we
halted at 4.40 a.m. (distance ninety li).
This is a village situated on a stream some twenty yards
broad and one and a half foot deep. One and a half mile
from this we had crossed a stream, four feet deep, which nearly
covered the mules and flooded the bottom of the cart
Weather fine, and cool in evening.
July 24. — Started at 7.45 a.m., immediately outside the
village passing a small fortified barrack with the eastern wall
washed away, but the gap had been fi^d up with fascines.
Rain began to fall as we started, and we had a wet march to
Karashar, over a moorland covered with bushes and some
trees, which looked like elm. At ten miles from Ching-shiu-kou
we crossed a bog by a causeway. The country was almost
uninhabited, though water was plentiful. It was not till within
two miles of Karashar that we passed a small hamlet We
entered Karashar (ninety li from Ching-shiu-kou) at 2.30 p.m.,
by the eastern gate, passing out again at the southern, and
putting up at an inn close by.
The town of Karashar, like all towns hereabouts, is sur-
rounded by a mud wall, and the gateways are surmounted
by the usual pagoda-shaped towers. There is a musketry wall
Digitized by
Google
144 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
running round outside the main wall, but it is now almost in
ruins. Inside the wall are some yamens, but only a few houses.
Outside, to the south, are a few shops and inns.
I had a conversation with some Tunganis who came to see
me. They said the population of the place is almost entirely
Tungani and Turks. In the mountains round are Kalmaks
and Khirgiz. These Tunganis (they called themselves Tungani
without my asking who they were) are not distinguishable in
features from an ordinary Chinaman, but they seem cleaner
and more respectable than the Chinese about here, who appear
to be the scum of the central provinces of China proper.
July 25. — We had to make a half-halt to-day, to dry things
which had been wetted in the river on Saturday night. I went
for a stroll round the place. Outside of the walled city there
are two streets running down to the river, which is rather more
than half a mile from the walls ; the northern street has most
shops, but they are poor. Near the river were some encamp-
ments of Kalmaks. They are regular Mongols, living in yurts
and dressed as other Mongols, and wearing pigtails, the round
coloured caps with a tassel, and long coats. They are easily
distinguishable from both Chinese and Turks. I questioned
several people about the different races of this part of Turkestan,
and was told that there were three different races — the Kitai
(Chinese), Tungani, and Turks, and here at Karashar were a
few Kalmaks. The Turks do not appear to be divided into
tribes, but are called by the town they belong to. The Chinese
call them Chan-teu (turban-wearers). One Turk, with whom
I was trying to converse, took me off to a shop where there
was a man who had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and had
seen Lahore, Bombay, Suez, and Constantinople. He only
spoke Persian, unfortunately. It is wonderful the distances
these pilgrims travel. I could find no Hindustani-speaking
men in Karashar.
I had told the innkeeper to look out for a good pony for
Digitized by
Google
188;.] FORDS, FERRIES, AND SWAMPS. 145
me, and two were brought up for inspection. I bought one for
twenty taels {£s), a good weight-carrying cob, short back and
legs, enormous quarters, but with much pleasanter paces than
his looks would warrant. I thought he ought to carry me to
India well.
We started at 4.10 p.m., and had to cross the river by ferry
at the end of the town. The river was about one hundred and
fifty yards wide, and three to four feet deep, running through
a level country, which would be flooded out if the river rose
another couple of feet The boat, which just held our cart
and my two ponies, was poled across by three Kalmaks. On
the other side we found a party of Kalmaks, riding donkeys,
waiting to be ferried over. They were escorting a Mongol lady,
the wife of one of their chiefs, back to her husband ; she had
been captured in some raid, and was now returning. She was
very strong and robust-looking, and had the whole party under
her thumb, and was abusing them right and left, because she had
just got a wetting in a branch of the river they had crossed.
She bustled about, unsaddling her donkey and turning it off to
graze, and ordered the rest about, here, there, and everywhere.
At a hundred yards after leaving the ferry we had to
ford a branch of the river, some thirty yards broad, and deep
enough in places to wet the inside of the cart again. After
this we passed over a swamp, and three times our cart stuck.
The first time we were three hours trying to get it out of
the mud, and it was not till we had taken everything out of
the cart, and engaged some Turks to help shove and pull, that
we succeeded in doing so. We then got along all right for a
couple of miles, when we stuck again, and a second time had
to unload everything. We then got clear of the swamp, but
stuck a third time in a deep rut! The animals were so
exhausted, that it was impossible to get on that night, as it
was one o'clock, and we went off to the house of one of the
Turks who was helping us, leaving the boy in the cart. The
L
Digitized by
Google
146 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
Turk showed us into a most comfortable room, made of mud
only, but looking clean for all that A kind of dado of chintz
had been arranged round the walls, which brightened up the
place. On the kang, piles of felts and bedding were rolled up.
There were two fireplaces in the room, but no chimney, the
smoke going out through a hole in the roof. All sorts of
household utensils were hung round the walls, and some mutton
and herbs were hanging from a rafter. Everything was clean
and neatly arranged, and there was no smell. It was a far
superior room to those which are inhabited by the same class
of men in an Indian village. My host bustled about to get
some bedding ready for me, and brought me some tea, after
which I turned in sharp, as I was very tired.
July 26. — Early this morning the cart was got out of
the ruL I gave twenty-five cents to each of the five men
who had helped us, and presented my host with some tea,
sugar, candles, and matches. He was delighted, and salaamed
profusely ; the old lady of the house bowed very gracefully to
me, too, as the things were brought into the house. They
insisted upon my having some tea, and the lady produced a
tray with some tea, bread, and flowers. The Turk then told
me that another Englishman had also put up at this house a
short time ago. After leaving the house the road was good,
leading over a sandy plain covered with little bushes. At three
miles we passed a small village with the ruins of a barrack.
Halted at forty li from the Turk's house, at Sho-shok, which
only consists of a Turki house and an inn, kept up by govern-
ment, with no one to look after it, and it was almost in ruins.
We dried our things here ; my clothes-bag was full of water.
At sunset the mosquitoes came in swarms; and though we
lighted four fires to smoke them off, it had no effect We were
to start at i a.m., and I lay down between the fires, but
could not get a wink of sleep — rather hard luck after having
been up till one the night before.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] THE ART OF CART-DRIVING, H?
July 27. — Started at 1.25 a.m., the carter distinguished him-
self again by getting the cart into a deep rut, although the
Turk Whom we had brought with us had pointed it outlto him.
He is the worst carter in Asia. The Turk then took the
matter into his own hands, turning the carter out of the cart
with ignominy. A good deal of knack is required in driving
these teams. We have two mules and one pony abreast in
front, and one pony in the shafts. The difficulty is to get them
all to start together. Whipping is no good ; the only way is
by shouting. A good carter works himself up, and then gives
a peculiar whoop, which sends all the mules into their collars.
They are not good at it here, but in Manchuria, where the
roads are so bad, they are first-rate, and will get a team of
nine animals to work like one.
The road now passed through a country broken up into
hillocks, and eleven miles from Sho-shok it entered a range
of hills running in a north-and-south direction, and followed the
bank of a river which cuts its way through the hills. Three
and a half miles further a custom-house and the ruins of a
fort are passed, which occupy the narrow space between the
river on one side and precipitous hills on the other. The
valley bottom varies in width from two hundred yards to a
quarter of a mile. The river is rapid, and of some length.
It is from thirty to forty yards broad, flowing over a pebbly
bed. The roadway has been made along the base of the
hills, large masses of stone and boulder having been cleared
away for the purpose.
We passed the flourishing little village of Kholga two and a
half miles from the custom-house, on the opposite bank of the
river. Here there was a steep ascent of three hundred yards, to
cross a projecting spur. The descent on the opposite side was
easy. Another spur, less steep, was crossed a mile and a half
further on, and then we descended gradually to Korlia. The
view of Korlia from the hill was very pretty. The whole plain
Digitized by
Google
148 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, vl
below, along the river-bank, was covered with trees and culti-
vated fields, amongst which could be seen the walls of Korlia.
There was a greater extent of cultivated land here than in
any other town we had passed. We reached Korlia at 9.25 a.m.,
and put up at an inn outside the south gate of the town.
Korlia has two towns, the Chinese and the Turk. The Chinese
is only some four hundred yards square, surrounded by a mud
wall some thirty-five feet in height, and by a ditch. There
are round bastions at the angles, but no bastion at the gateway.
The entrance is on the south side only. One mile south
is the Turk town, washed on its northern face by the river,
which is crossed by a wooden bridge. The walls of the Turk
town are in ruins. The town has one principal street running
north and south, about seven hundred yards long. The shops
are somewhat better than at Karashar, but not so good as at
Turfan. The people here seem prosperous, and the country
round is well cultivated. Wheat was just being reaped, maize
was grown in large quantities, and rice was also cultivated.
We changed one of the cart-ponies here, and just before
starting engaged a Turk to come with us to Kashgar. Starting
again at 7.25 p.m., we took a northerly direction at first, till we
reached the desert, along which we proceeded in a westerly
direction, skirting the cultivated land. Halted at 11. 10 p.m.,
at an inn where the cultivation ended (forty H).
yuly 28. — In the morning we found the Turk had dis-
appeared. The carter, delighted to find somebody whom he
thought he could lord it over, had abused and ordered him
about, so that he had wisely taken his departure during the
night
Started at 4.45 a.m., crossing a desert covered with scrub.
The cultivated land could be seen extending along the banks
of the river in a south-westerly direction. At seventeen
miles we passed the ruins of an inn, and, eight miles further,
entered a country covered with trees, but with not much
Digitized by
Google
J^S?.] RE-ORGANIZATION. 149
undergrowth. Halted at 240 p.m. at Charch, a small hamlet on
the banks of a stream. There are ruined barracks here (140 li).
Started again at 6 p.m., joining another cart, also going to
Kuch^. The country was like that which we passed over in
the morning, well covered with trees. At twenty miles we
passed a ruined house near some water. Halted at 3 a.m.,
at Yerum-kou (ninety li), a small village on a stream.
July 29. — We had an entire re-organization of the party
here. The carter of the cart accompanying us agreed to
come to India with me for six taels a month. He is young
and strong, and understands the management of ponies, so I
hope he will turn out useful
The carter from Hami was turned off, and we took on
a Chinaman, who was returning to Kashgar. My boy now
told me that he had himself bought the cart and team at
Hami for 125 taels {£2^).
The boy has sold the cart and team to the new carter for
eighty-two taels, promising him twenty taels if we get to
Kashgar in twenty days more.
Started at 3.25 p.m., passing over a desert till the cultivated
lands of Yang-sar are reached. These are of some extent,
reaching about eight miles from north to south, and some
five miles in width.
The village of Yang-sar is not large, but the whole country
is dotted with houses. The stream which waters the fields is
crossed by a good wooden bridge, and the road is lined with
trees.
July 30. — Started at 4.15 p.m. The cultivation ended
after two miles, and then the road became bad, and several
very awkward pieces of bog had to be crossed before we
reached Bu-yur. We arrived there at 12,10 p.m. (ninety li).
This is a somewhat larger oasis than Yang-sar, and the
village of Bu-yur contains two streets of shops. There are
also barracks here with about three hundred soldiers.
Digitized by
Google
I50 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
July 31. — Started at 2.30 p.m., passing through cultivated
land for ten miles. Two small streams were crossed, their
banks lined with fine pasture land. A desert was now crossed,
and we halted at 11.30 p.m.
August I. — Started at 6 a.m. The cultivation ended
immediately, and we passed over a gravel desert, sandy in
places ; going heavy. We constantly saw oblongs of stones,
with a big one at the head, facing towards Mecca. These
are temporary praying-places in the desert.
Halted at 11. 30 a.m. at an inn without a keeper, in a very
small oasis, with only one other house.
Talking with a Turk, I found out that the people about
here are chiefly Doolans, a branch of the Turk people. These
extend up to Turfan, but not to Urumchi. I can at present see
no difference between them and other Turks. My informant
said that at Urumchi there were Turks, but not Doolans.
Started again at 1.45 p.m., passing over a desert. Halted
at 7 p.m. One inn was full of soldiers returning to their
homes. My boy, and, in fact, everybody, has a dread of
soldiers, who have the reputation of stealing everything they
can lay their hands on. When a crowd collects round my
room or the cart, and he hears that there are soldiers among
them, Liu-san shouts out to me in English, " Master ! look
out ! Soldier man plenty steal ! "
The oasis is some seven or eight miles in length from
north to south, and from two to three miles in width, watered
by streams running down from the mountains.
Weather fine and hot.
August 2. — Started at 2.10, crossing a desert again, watered
however, at intervals by three streams running down the slope.
At 8.30 we arrived at the Kuchfi oasis, and for three miles
passed through a country covered with trees and houses.
The road also was lined with trees, and a good many houses,
before we reached the actual town. The number of trees is
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A HORSE-DEALER. 151
very noticeable, and on the roadside the houses are actually
built on to the trees.
We drove into an inn yard, but found there was no room ;
and were told that a batch of soldiers were passing through,
so all the inns had closed their doors. The gallant defenders
of their country are not held in much esteem by their fellow-
countrymen. After waiting for half an hour in the cart, the
landlord made arrangements for a room for me.
A Turk who spoke Hindustani now appeared. He was
a Hajji, and had spent ten years in India, horse-dealing. He
was very friendly, and asked if he could be of any service. I
said I wanted a Turk servant to go to India with me, and
also wanted to buy a good pony. He went off, saying there
were plenty of both, and soon the inn yard was full of ponies.
He was a regular Indian horse-dealer, and I laughed when
he began with the usual "Sahib, ham juth ne bolenge" ("I
will not tell a lie"), "dam assi rupiye" ("the price is eighty
rupees"). I told him I never told lies either, and what I
would give was twenty taels (he reckoned eighty rupees at
thirty taels). All sorts of ponies appeared, and I rode between
twenty and thirty up and down the main street, which was
the only place handy for trying them. They were asking
about three times the price usually given for ponies in these
parts, so I only selected one, which I bought for twenty-five
taels (;^s). It was about the lowest-priced pony they brought,
but they were going by a different standard to mine, for size
and weight-carrying capacity is what they value. The Hajji
was very keen upon my buying a two-year-old pony marked
with black spots all over. I said it was too young. "Not
at all," he said. "He will be three or four years old by the
time you get to India." This after he had told me I could
get there in two months ! Two Afghans also, who had lived
here for twenty years, visited me. I asked them if they were
here in Yakoob Beg's time. They said, "Yes; that was a
Digitized by
Google
152 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. vi.
good time then." The Afghans spoke of the conduct of the
Chinese as very zabardast (oppressive), and said the Turks
were like sheep in submitting to it One of the Afghans
had known Sir Douglas Forsyth, and had heard of his
death.
The Turk Kotwal came to see me, to report to the Chinese
who I was, and what I was doing. He was the most good-
natured old gentleman, and took down my answer as if it were
a most unnecessary business to satisfy Chinese curiosity. I
said I was returning to India, where I lived. Kuchfe town and
district has, probably, sixty thousand inhabitants. The Hajji
told me that numbers of people went up into the hills during
the hot weather. The Chinese town is some seven hundred
yards square, with a wall twenty-five feet high, with no
bastions, and no protection to the gateways, but a ditch
some twenty feet deep. The interior is filled with houses,
and has a few bad shops. The houses of the Turk city run
right up to the ditch. About eight hundred yards north of
the Chinese city are barracks for five hundred men ; I estimate
the whole garrison at one thousand five hundred ; they are
armed with old Enfield rifles, with the Tower mark. There
are remains of the walls of the old Turk city south-east of
the Chinese, but the greater number of houses and all the
shops are outside of this. The shops are small, like those in
India, and nothing of native manufacture is sold, excepting
sheepskins, which are very cheap. My boy bought two for his
parents, seven taels each ; he says in Peking they would cost
twelve or fifteen taels. I also bought one. Silks and cotton
goods come from Andijan, Russia, and China.
August 2. — Started at 7.30 p.m., passing through the Chinese
city, and afterwards through a well-cultivated country for three
miles, when the desert began again. We now gradually
ascended towards a range of hills, up the bed of a stream.
Going very heavy.
Digitized by
Google
1887.] YAKOOB BEG'S PILLARS. 153
Halted at 3 am. at an inn, without anybody in charge,
near a small spring. A Turk's house was close by.
August 3. — Started at 6.10 a.m., still ascending the gorge.
The stream cuts through one range of hills, on the north side
of which was a sea of broken hillocks leading up to a second
range, the ascent of which, for a quarter of a mile, was very
steep, and took an hour and a half. It is covered with pebbles.
At the summit is a small house where water is sold. The
descent is easy, but lasts all the way to Kizil, where we
arrived at 3.10. All along the road, pillars, made by Yakoob
Beg, were erected at intervals of ten li. We put up at a good
inn on the left bank of the river which fertilizes the Kizil
lands, but the main part of the village is on the opposite
bank.
Weather cloudy ; thunderstorms in the hills.
August ^ — Started at 5.10 a.m., and had to cross the river
close to the inn. It was swollen by rain, and divided into four
channels, two of which were up to a man's waist ; three hundred
yards broad, and flowing with a rapid current We had two
men to lead the cart over, as sometimes carts are swept away
bodily in these freshets. The land was cultivated for a mile
on the other side, and all along the banks of the river below
the village as far as I could see.
At 8.50 we passed through the village of Sardm, which is
surrounded by a wall about two hundred yards square, now in
ruins. Outside the village were the remains of barracks, now
unoccupied. From this place to Bai the country was cultivated
for the greater part of the way, being level and watered by
numerous streams running down from the mountains. The
road was lined with trees the whole way, and the country looked
extremely pretty with the snowy mountains in the background.
Wheat, oats, and maize were the chief crops. Reaping was just
beginning, A noticeable thing in this country is the absence of
local carts. They are not used at all for farm purposes or for
Digitized by
Google
154 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. VI.
carrying country produce into town. Donkeys only were used
for this, and one only sees a few travelling carts used for long
journeys. Arrived at Bai at 4.50 p.m. (120 li). It is a poor place,
built on the right bank of a small river. It contains, perhaps,
three thousand inhabitants, but the districts round are very
populous, the cultivated land extending eight or ten miles to
the north, and five or six miles to the south. Three-quarters
of a mile from the river-bank, and separated from the town,
are two square fort-like looking places, which I was informed
were mandarins* quarters, and not barracks. There is a large
yamen just outside the west side of the town, which is not
surrounded by a wall.
Weather fine during day, but a heavy thunderstorm came
on at 7 p.m.
On August 7 we arrived at Aksu, the largest town we
had yet seen. It had a garrison of two thousand soldiers,
and a native population of about twenty thousand, beside
the inhabitants of the surrounding district. There were large
bazaars and several inns — some for travellers, others for
merchants wishing to make a prolonged stay to sell goods.
A man will bring goods from some distance, engage a room
in one of these inns or serais^ and remain there for some
months, or even a year or two, till he has sold his goods.
He will then buy up a new stock, and start off to another
town. It is in these serais that one meets the typical travelling
merchant of Central Asia ; and often have I envied these
men their free, independent, wandering life, interspersed with
enough of hardships, of travel, and risks in strange countries
to give it a relish. They are always interesting to talk to :
intelligent, shrewd, full of information. Naturally they are well-
disposed to Englishmen, on account of the encouragement we
give to trade ; but they are very cosmopolitan, and do not
really belong to any country except that in which they are at
the time living. And this habit of rubbing up against men of
Digitized by
Google
1887.] RAHMAT'ULA'KHAN, 155
SO many different countries gives them a quiet, even tempera-
ment and breadth of idea which makes them very charming
company.
I engaged one of these men, a native of the Pathan state
of Bajaur, to accompany me to Kashgar, by Ush Turfan, while
my cart went by Maral-bashi — Rahmat-ula-Khan was his name.
He was a good specimen of his class, and full of adventurous
projects. His great ambition was to visit England, but as he
wanted to do so by land and not by sea, which he was afraid
of, he wished to know how he could work his way there ; and
said he had often thought of taking over some white camels,
which another merchant had told him could be obtained on
the borders of the desert On my questioning him about these
camels, he said he was not sure that they were actually white,
but they were of a very light colour, and quite peculiar animals,
which would make a sensation in the Zoo.* He asked me,
however, whether, I had any better suggestions to make as to
how he could make a journey to England pay. I told him that
if he would search about among the old ruined cities of this
country and those buried by the sand, he might find old
ornaments and books for which large sums of money would be
given him in England, and before he left me I wrote for him
letters to the directors of the British Museum, and of the
museums at Bombay and Calcutta.
Under the guidance of this man, I left Aksu on August
ID. I rode one pony myself, and another was ridden by the
Turki servant, and a third, carrying all the baggage we took with
us, was led by him. In this way we could travel fast, and make
long marches. Several of the merchants from India accom-
panied us for the first half of the march, and provided a lunch
in a garden under the shade of fruit trees. Here it was very
cool and pleasant, and the merchants very cheery and com-
panionable. The country, for several miles beyond Aksu, was
♦ He had seen the "Zoo" at Calcutta.
Digitized by
Google
156 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. VI.
well cultivated, and the road good. We crossed the Aksu
river, divided into many branches, a mile wide in all, the water
in the deep channels being waist-deep. Further on we passed
the small village of Aral, and the next day arrived at Ush
Turfan.
This is a picturesque little town at the foot of a rugged hill,
with a fort on its summit There is a good bazaar here, and
I met in it an old man who had been one of Yakoob Beg's
chief secretaries, but was now in very poor circumstances.
He could only mumble away rather indistinctly, but when he
saw me he uttered the word " Shaw," and I immediately asked
the people to question him, and found out that he had had a
great deal to do with my uncle, and had a great regard for
him. I was getting now, in fact, into country where people
were constantly met with who knew Shaw and the members
of the Forsyth Mission, and the interest of the journey increased.
In Central Asia changes of personnel are sharp and radical.
One year Yakoob Beg is unknown ; the next he rules a vast
country, and is surrounded by courtiers and great officers of
state. For a short time they remain in power, and then they
are swept clean away, and Chinese rule in their place. Of the
men who were all-powerful at the time of Sir Douglas Forsyth's
Mission, and Shaw's last journey in the country, only eleven
years before my visit, but very very few remained, and those
in the poorest circumstances. But it was interesting to meet
them, and get them to talk of better days, and the state and
grandeur which they had known.
After leaving Ush Turfan, we passed through a country
cultivated at first, but afterwards relapsing into the more or less
barren condition which is characteristic of the district The
sides of the hills which bounded the valley we were ascending
were not, however, so utterly barren as many we had passed.
There was a good deal of scrub and small bushes on them,
and, higher up, fine grassy slopes in places. At the end of
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A KIRGHIZ ENCAMPMENT, iS7
the march we reached a Kirghiz encampment of twenty-two
tents. Here were the first Kirghiz I had met; but most of
the men were with their flocks and herds, higher up on the
mountain-sides, and it was only the very old and the very
young that were left down below with what might be called
the heavy camp equipage. Having no tent of my own, and
there being no public inn, I was obliged to do as the people
of the country do, and seek the hospitality of the inhabitants
of the tents. This was, as usual, readily given. We rode up
to a tent, and Rahmat-ula-Khan went in, said we were
travelling to Kashgar, and asked for accommodation for the
night. In this way I found myself quartered in a tent with
four very old ladies, one of whom was a great-grandmother,
and the youngest a grandmother. They were very hospitable
old ladies, and we took a mutual interest in each other. The
tent was similar in construction to the yurts of the Mongols,
but these Kirghiz seemed much better off than any of the
Mongols I had met, or than the Kirghiz we afterwards saw
on the Pamirs. They were well clothed in long loose robes
of stout cotton cloth — generally striped — of Russian manu-
facture. Round the tents were piles of clothes and bedding
for the winter — ^good stout felts and warm quilts ; and rows
of boxes to contain the household goods and treasures. A
small portion of the tent was always partitioned off, and there
were kept all the supplies of milk, cream, and curds, which
form the staple food of the Kirghiz. On the whole, the tents
were very clean and comfortable, and by living en famille
with these Kirghiz, I got to see a great deal more of their
customs and habits than I otherwise should have done.
Meanwhile, while I was looking round the tent, my
hostesses were examining all my kit, and showing great
interest in it. I had to take off my boots and socks, and it
so happened that my socks had holes. This immediately
appealed to the feminine instinct ; they were whisked away.
Digitized by
Google
158 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
and one of the old ladies proceeded carefully to mend them.
Good old soul, it quite reminded one of more homelike times
to be looked after in this way I After mending the socks, the
lady said her prayers, and throughout the time I was with
them one or other of the old ladies always appeared to be
praying.
In the evening all the cows and sheep and goats — mostly
those with young ones— which had been left in the encampment,
were collected and milked, and one or two young kids brought
into the tent to be better looked after. The milk was very
rich in cream, and delicious to drink. But the Kirghiz drink
whey mostly, and they have a method of rolling the nearly
solidified curds into balls about the size of a man's fist, and
drying these balls in the sun to keep for the winter or for a
journey. Balls of curds like these are not very appetizing,
but they are much consumed by the Kirghiz. All the bowls
for collecting the milk are of wood, and by no means so cleanly
kept as one would like to see ; I doubt, in fact, if they are
ever thoroughly cleaned. The milk of one day is poured out,
and that of the next poured in, and so on for month after
month. Still, the milk always seems fresh and good, and it
is one of the luxuries which form the reward for travelling
among the Kirghiz.
The proprietresses of the tent I was in had their dinner
of curds and milk and a little bread, and then, as it grew dark,
they said it was time to go to bed. They first said their
prayers, then took down one of the piles of bedding (bedsteads
were, of course, unknown), and insisted on making up a bed
of quilts and felts for me ; and then, having made up their own
also, and pulled a felt over the hole in the roof in case it might
rain during the night, took themselves to their beds, and we
all slept comfortably till morning.
On the following day we continued up the valley, and
every few miles passed a small encampment of Kirghiz. We
Digitized by
Google
l887.] THE SYRT COUNTRY. 159
were, in fact, regularly in the Kirghiz preserves. The nomads
are not cultivators, as a rule, but we passed a few patches
of cultivation, and what was very remarkable was that this
cultivation was very often — generally indeed in this valley —
of poppies. On inquiry, I found that, though the Kirghiz do
not smoke opium themselves, they find poppies a most paying
crop to grow, and can sell the produce much more profitably
than that of any other crop.
On August 14, after passing through a camping-ground
called Sontash, we put up for the night at another named
Ak-chak, and on the following day crossed the Kara-kara
Pass, entered a rather bare plain sloping westward, and about
fifteen miles beyond the first pass crossed a second. We
were now in what is known as the Syrt country. There
was no particular road, but the tracks of animals leading in
many directions. We had brought a Kirghiz with us to
show us the way, but he now refused to do so, and eventually
left us stranded in the midst of a series of bare, low hills and
sterile plains, without apparently any water, or any inhabitants,
or any special road. We knew, too, that what people we
should meet had not a good reputation, and were said to rob
and murder travellers occasionally, and matters looked un-
pleasant. We pushed on, however, in the general direction
of Kashgar, and towards evening, after a very hard march,
reached an encampment of six tents. The owner of the one
we applied to was very surly, but eventually agreed to give us
accommodation for the night. As we entered the tent, I was
startled on seeing a huge, fierce-looking eagle tied by the leg just
at the door. From all appearances, it would require very little
provocation to cause it to fly at one, and I was relieved when
I found myself safely past it It was one of the eagles which
the people of the part keep for hawking purposes, and with
these they secure even small deer. I never saw them at this
sport, but I recollect some years afterwards, on the Pamirs,
Digitized by
Google
i6o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
seeing a Kirghiz catch an eagle for this purpose by riding it
down. When I first saw the man starting off to gallop down
an eagle, I thought he must be mad. We had seen two eagles
on the ground in the distance, and as soon as the Kirghiz
caught sight of them he set off wildly after them. They, of
course, rose on seeing him, but he went careering down the
valley after one of them till gradually the bird sank down to
the ground. It was, in fact, gorged with the flesh of the
carcase it had been feeding on, and could no longer fly. The
Kirghiz dismounted, seized hold of the bird, bound his waist-
cloth round and round the body and wings till he had made
it up into a neat parcel, and then tucked it under his arm,
mounted, and rode back to me. He said that, if it turned
out to be a good one for hawking, he might get two hundred
rupees for it I questioned the owner of the eagle in the tent
in which we were now staying about the training of these
eagles, but he was too surly to give me any satisfactory
answers, and it was with no very grateful feelings towards him
that we left his camp on the following morning.
We travelled hard all day, and, at the end of a march of
forty-six miles, over a country mostly composed of bare hills
and gravel plains, but with occasional clumps of trees in the
hollows, we reached a wide plain of light clay, in the middle
of which we found a very large encampment of fully a
hundred tents. But the inhabitants were far from friendly,
and it was only after considerable difficulty that a man was
found who was willing to put us up. Rahmat-ula-Khan was
very tactful and persuasive, but he told me that night that the
people were very badly disposed towards us, and advised me
to be watchful.
Next morning matters were worse. As I mounted to
ride away, crowds of these rough Kirghiz collected round
me, gesticulating wildly. I asked Rahmat-ula-Khan what
was the matter, and he said that they had determined
Digitized by
Google
i887.] HOSTILE KIRGHIZ, i6i
not to let me through their country. They argued that no
European had been through before (though this was not
true, as a party of British officers from Sir Douglas Forsyth's
Mission came into their country as far as the Below-ti Pass),
and that they did not see any reason why I should be
allowed to. Some of the more excited were for resorting to
violent measures, but Rahmat-ula-Khan, who all the time
was keeping very quiet and even smiling, talked and reasoned
with them, while I sat on my pony and looked on, well knowing
that the Pathan could arrange matters best by himself.
It was curious to watch the gradual effect of his arguments,
and the cool way in which he proceeded. He first of all drew
them out, and allowed them to expend all the spare energy for
vociferation they possessed, and then asked them what advan-
tage was to be gained by stopping me. He said I had come
direct from Peking, and had a passport from the Emperor of
China, which I could show them ; and that, having that pass-
port, I was known, and my whereabouts was known, so that if
anything happened to me they would have Chinese soldiers
swarming over their country, and every sort of harm done
them. He then went on to say that as far as he was concerned
it was a matter of indifference whether they let me through
or not ; but, looking at the question from an outside point of
view, it certainly seemed to him wiser on their part to let
me go quietly on to the next place, and so end the matter.
If they did this, nothing more would be heard of me ; whereas,
if they did anything to me, a good deal more might come of
it. The upshot of the affair was that they allowed themselves
to be persuaded, and it was agreed that I should be permitted
to proceed on my way. Rahmat-ula-Khan had successfully
extracted me from what might have been a very awkward
situation.
He was one of the best men for this kind of work I could
have found, for he was always well-spoken with the people, and
M
Digitized by
Google
i62 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vi.
cool in difficulties. He was a good companion, too, and on
the long marches and after them, in the tent, he used to tell
me of his travels, in the course of which he had been in
Egypt, and was in Constantinople at the time of the Russian
war. What struck him most about the Russians was that
their soldiers were "pukka," that is, hardy. They were not
so well treated as ours in the way of food and clothing, but
they were "pukka," he kept on repeating, and ready to go
through any amount of hardships. The trait he did not
like in the Russians was their passion for passports; they
were always at him for his passport, so that there was always
a certain amount of difficulty or obstruction in moving about,
and this interfered with his constitutional habit of roving.
He was a strict Mohammedan, and seemed to me to be
always praying, though he assured me he only did so the
regulation five times a day. As to us, he thought we had no
religion. He had observed us going to church on Sundays,
but that was only once a week, and he did not know what
we did for the remainder of the seven days. I knew that
this man could be relied on, and so left this dispute with the
Kirghiz entirely in his hands ; and when he had settled it,
we set out from the encampment.
This was the largest settlement I had met with, and the
Kirghiz besides keeping flocks and herds, also cultivated a good
deal of land. I noticed some houses scattered about the plain,
and asked who lived in them, but was told that they were
merely storehouses. The Kirghiz said that houses were
good enough to put supplies of grain in, but they would
not live in them for fear of their falling down.
From this place we determined to march on as hard as
we could till we got out of the country inhabited by Kirghiz,
and down into the plains again, where the people are all
Turkis. This we succeeded in doing the same day. We
followed down a stream, and then, after passing a smalj
Digitized by
Google
i887.] FIRST SIGHT OF PAMIR MOUNTAINS. 163
Chinese post, emerged on to the great central plain of Turke-
stan again near Artysh. From here I saw one of those sights
which almost strike one dumb at first — a line of snowy peaks
apparently suspended in mid-air. They were the Pamir
Mountains, but they were so distant, and the lower atmosphere
was so laden with dust, that their base was hidden, and only
their snowy summits were visible. One of these was over
twenty-five thousand feet high, and another twenty- two thou-
sand, while the spot where I stood was only four thousand ;
so their height appeared enormous and greater still on account
of this wonderful appearance of being separated from earth.
Here, indeed, was a landmark of progress. More than a
thousand miles back I had first sighted the end of the Tian-
shan Mountains from the desert I had surmounted their
terminal spurs, and then travelled week after week along their
base, their summits constantly appearing away on my right
hand. Now at last arose in front of me the barrier which was
to mark the point where I should turn off left and south to
India. It was a worthy termination of that vast plain, for
the greater part desert, which stretches away from the borders
of Manchuria to the buttress range of the Pamirs.
That evening we reached Artysh. Everything here looked
thriving and prosperous. The fruit season was at its height,
and all along the road, at any little garden, the most delicious
grapes and melons could be obtained. Nor was there now
any difficulty with the people, and they were always ready
to allow us to rest for a time in their gardens or put us up
for the night. I noticed a very large canal, which struck me
as being an unusually fine work for the people of the country
to undertake, and was informed that it had been made by
Yakoob Beg. His intention had been to water a large desert
tract beyond, but he had not lived to complete his task, and only
a comparatively small piece of country is now irrigated by it.
But it is a standing mark of his large ideas for the improvement
Digitized by
Google
i64 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. vi.
of the country, and the people spoke regretfully of the indiffer-
ence the Chinese showed towards the project
On the following day we should reach Kashgar, and the
second great stage of the journey would be completed. Half
way from Artysh we passed through one of the most remarkable
defiles I have seen. It lay through a low range of hills a few
hundred feet high, and was up the course of a stream which had
cut a passage in the rock so sheer and narrow that there was
not room for much more than a laden mule to pass through,
and the cleft was but little wider at the top to what it was at
the bottom.
From this we emerged on to the Kashgar plain, passed
through a populous, well-cultivated district covered with trees
and fruit gardens, and at length entered the town of Kashgar,
the distance to which, when I was starting from Peking, had
seemed so vast. Here I was at last, and the culminating point
of my journey had been reached For the rest of the way I
should be, so to speak, on my return. Kashgar was well known,
too, from the Indian side, and there was a Russian consul
stationed there. So when I reached the place I appeared to
have arrived again on the fringes of civilization.
Passing through the native town, we put up at an inn on
the southern side. I sent my card and passport to the yamen,
and very shortly afterwards the Afghan Aksakal and a number
of Indian traders came to see me. These Aksakals are men
selected by the Chinese from among the traders of each country
as their representative. They are responsible for reporting
any new arrivals, and all dealings with their countrymen are
carried on by the Chinese through them. They correspond to
a certain extent to consuls, and perform some of the functions
of a consul, but they are appointed and removed at the pleasure
of the Chinese. This Afghan Aksakal, though he was after-
wards suspected of having sheltered the murderer of Mr.
Dalgleish (to whom I will refer presently), and had to leave
Digitized by
Google
i887.] KASHGAR. 165
Kashgar, made himself very useful to me, and greatly impressed
me. He struck me as a bom soldier: strong-willed, capable,
and made to command. He and many of the traders of the
place — Afghans, Peshawuris, Badakhshis, and others — were
with me nearly the whole day long during my few days' stay
in Kashgar. Tea and fruit were always ready, and they used
to sit round and talk. The Afghan's conversation was mostly
of fighting, and of rifles and revolvers. Every kind of firearm
he seemed to know, and to have his own opinion about it as to
its efficiency. The Russian Berdan rifle he seemed to prefer
to our Martini, and he thought the Americans made better
revolvers than we did. At the time the Chinese re-took Kashgar
he was in the town, and said there was practically no fighting.
Yakoob Beg had died, or been poisoned, away westward some
weeks before, and he being dead, there was no one to lead the
defence, and the people of the country were absolutely apathetic.
What soldiers there were, when they heard the Chinese were
close to the town, hastily threw aside their uniforms or disguises
as soldiers, and, assuming the dress of cultivators, walked about
the fields in a lamb-like and innocent manner. The Chinese
entered the town, and everything went on as if nothing had
happened — the shopkeeper sold his wares, and the countryman
ploughed his fields, totally indifferent as to who was or who
was not in power in Kashgar. Only the ruling classes were
affected, and most of them had fled.
The Afghan merchants would often talk, too, of our last
war with them. Some of them had fought against us. They
asked me one day where " Ropert " was. I did not quite under-
stand at first who or what they meant But they explained
that he (it was a person apparently) was a first-rate man to
fight, and then it struck me that they meant General Roberts.
They had a great admiration for him. One of them said
that he had set out from Kandahar to Kabul, but on the way
had "met" General Roberts, and had returned. I was told
Digitized by
Google
i66 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
afterwards that he had been in three fights with the British,
but here, outside his own country, he was friendly enough with
an Englishman, and he said he admired us for being able to
fight quite as well as Afghans ! They have a rather over-
powering pride at times, these Afghans ; but, on the whole,
one likes them for their manliness. They are men^ at any rate,
and they are very good fellows to meet and talk with as one
could do in a Kashgar serau It was noticeable, too, that they
never lost their respect either for themselves or for the English-
man they were talking with, so that we could converse away
perfectly freely and openly. Altogether I much enjoyed my
talk with them.
I was rather out of sorts the day after my arrival, but on
the second I went to call on the Russian consul. The Afghan
Aksakal had an idea that Russians and Englishmen were rather
like cats and dogs in their relation towards each other, and that
they could not meet without fighting. So, just as I was
mounting my pony to go off, he caught me by the arm and
whispered confidentially to me, " Now, sahib, do your best to
be polite, and don't go fighting with that Russian." I found
M. Petrovsky, the Russian consul, living in a native house,
which, by improvements, he had made very comfortable. He
and his secretary, M. Lutsch, received me very cordially, and
sent for a missionary, M, Hendriks, who lived close by, to
come and see me and hear the account of my journey from
Peking. The talk turned on India, and I was astonished to
find how well acquainted M. Petrovsky was with that country.
He showed me with pride many volumes by the best English
writers on Indian subjects, and the most recent parliamentary
Blue Books on the country. The annual parliamentary report
on the " Material and Moral Progress of India " was one which
he took in regularly, and admired very much. He had known
the present Amir of Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman, at the time
he was a refugee in Samarcand, and he knew the names and
Digitized by
Google
18870 MM. PETROVSKY AND HENDRIKS, 167
a good deal of the personal history of most of the leading men
in Kashmir. On the Central Asian question he spoke very
freely, and said that we English always suspected the Russians
of designs upon India, but that in reality nothing was further
from their minds.
But comprehensive as was M. Petrovsky's knowledge of
India and Central Asian affairs, I am not sure that they were
what chiefly attracted him ; and I am inclined to think that his
heart really lay in scientific pursuits. In his library were
large numbers of books of science, and his room was full of
instruments of various descriptions — an astronomical telescope,
barometers, thermometers of all kinds, an apparatus for
measuring the movements of earthquakes, and various other
instruments. He was evidently a man of considerable attain-
ments. The consulate had been established in Kashgar about
seven years, and both M. Petrovsky and M. Lutsch had been
there from the beginning. They both understood English and
read it, but had had little practice in speaking it. The Chinese
they did not speak of at all favourably. According to them,
they were lazy and corrupt, and administered the country very
badly.
M. Hendriks had been in Kashgar for two or three years,
and had previously belonged to a mission establishment on the
borders of Mongolia. He was a man of varied accomplishments,
who had travelled much, and who spoke or read most languages
from Russian to Tibetan. So far he had had little success in
actually converting the people of Kashgar, who are very
apathetic, and little inclined to think much about religion of
any sort, much less to take the trouble of changing that in
which they were brought up. But M. Hendriks was a good
doctor as well as a missionary, and often spent his time in
visiting and prescribing for the sick, in this way doing much
practical good.
When I returned to the serai from my visit to the consul.
Digitized by
Google
i68 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vi.
the Afghan Aksakal eyed me closely, to see if there were any
signs of a scrimmage with the Russian, and when I told him
that M. Petrovsky was coming on the following morning to
return my visit, he seemed relieved. I said I should want the
room I was occupying made respectable to receive him in, and
he immediately darted off in his usual impetuous manner, saying
he would arrange everything. Shortly afterwards good carpets,
chairs, a table, teapot, cups, saucers, and plates, came pouring
in, and the room was in a few moments transformed into a
civilized abode.
On the following morning the consul, with an escort of
sixteen mounted Cossacks and the Russian flag, rode into the
serai. We had another long conversation together, and it was
a great pleasure to talk again with a European, after so many
months of travel. M. Petrovsky is an especially interesting
man to talk with, and I was sorry I could not stay longer in
Kashgar to see more of him.
But, Liu-san having arrived with the cart, I had to start
off again for Yarkand. Liu-san had fulfilled his contract, and
landed everything in Kashgar exactly in the time stipulated —
forty days from Hami — a good performance, with which I was
very much pleased. Between Kashgar and Yarkand there was
nothing of special interest that had not been noted by previous
travellers. We had made the turn southwards, and now the
Pamir Mountains, instead of being straight in front of us, were
passed by on our right hand.
On August 29 we reached Yarkand, and were met outside
by the Kashmir Aksakal and a large number of Indian traders,
who had heard that an English officer was coming to Yarkand,
and had come out to meet me. An Englishman always gets
a warm welcome from natives of India in foreign countries. I
have been told that it is all because of self-interest, and that
they merely do it because they hope to get something out of
him. Possibly this may be so, but I prefer to think that there
Digitized by
Google
1. S. W«ILe£ , F KAs S 4^Jimtima^MU . S£.
Digitized by
Google
i887.] ARRIVAL AT Y ARK AND. 169
is also some tinge of warmth of heart in it, and a feeling of
kinship with their rulers which attracts them in a strange land
to an Englishman. At any rate, that was the impression pro-
duced upon me by my reception in Yarkand, and I would
rather retain that than make way for the colder reasoning which
has been suggested to me.
In the best Chinese inn in the place the chief room had been
made ready for me by the Kashmir Aksakal. Carpets, chairs,
and tables from his own house had been brought in, and large
plates and baskets piled with fruit — presents from the merchants
— came pouring in. Everything was done to make me com-
fortable, and the feeling that I was nearing my destination
increased.
Digitized by
Google
I70 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vii.
CHAPTER VII.
INTO THE HEART OF THE HIMALAYAS.
Yarkand was the last town of Chinese Turkestan I visited,
and now that I had traversed the entire length of the country,
a brief general description of it may be interesting. The chief
characteristic of its physical features is undoubtedly the amount
of desert comprised in it. The whole country is, in fact, nothing
but a desert, with patches of cultivation along the streams
which flow down from the mountains, showing out sharp and
distinct like green splotches on a sepia picture. On three
sides this desert is shut in by ranges of snowy mountains,
very like the letter U, and on the fourth side it stretches
away uninterruptedly for nearly two thousand miles. The
mountain slopes are as bare as the plains, and were it not for
the oases, no more inhospitable country could be imagined.
But these oases are what save it. Once out of the surrounding
desert, the traveller finds himself amidst the most inviting
surroundings — cool shady lanes with watercourses running in
every direction, alongside the road, across it, and under it,
giving life to everything where before all was dead and bare
and burnt On either hand, as far as can be seen, lie field
after field of ripening crops, only broken by the fruit gardens
and shady little hamlets. Everything seems in plenty. Fruit
is brought before you in huge trayfuls, and wheat is cheaper
than even in India.
In this way it is a land of extremes. On one side nothing
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] A LAND OF EXTREMES, 171
— not the possibility of anything ; on the other — ^plenty. And
the climate has as great extremes as the physical appearance.
The summer is scorchingly hot anywhere outside the small
portion that is cultivated and shaded with trees; and in the
winter the thermometer falls to zero Fahrenheit. This is the
natural result of the position of the country in the very heart
of the greatest continent, where none of the tempering effects
of the sea could possibly reach it
The people, however, do not share this characteristic of
running to extremes. They are the essence of imperturbable
mediocrity. They live in a land where — in the places in which
anything at all can be grown — the necessaries of life can be
produced easily and .plentifully. Their mountain barriers
shield them from severe outside competition, and they lead
a careless, easy, apathetic existence. Nothing disturbs them.
Revolutions have occurred, but they have mostly been carried
out by foreigners. One set of rulers has suddenly replaced
another set, but the rulers in both instances have nearly all
been foreigners. Yakoob Beg was a foreigner, and most of the
officials under him were foreigners, so that even when their
hereditary rulers — the Chinese — were driven out for a time,
the people of Chinese Turkestan did not rule themselves.
On the contrary, in all these changes, they appear to have
looked on with indifference. Such a people are, as might
naturally be inferred, not a fighting race. They are a race
of cultivators and small shopkeepers, and nothing more, and
nothing would make them anything more. It is their destiny,
shut away here from the rest of the world, to lead a dull,
spiritless, but easy and perhaps happy life, which they allow
nothing to disturb.
How different all this is to what we had found in Manchuria !
There we had the keen, industrious Chinaman, working his
very hardest — working away from morning to night, not to
live merely, but to get the utmost he could out of the land^
Digitized by
Google
172 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
accumulating his wealth, seeking your custom, doing all he
could to improve his position. The ruins, the dilapidated towns
of Turkestan, were practically unknown there, and the large
concentrated villages, instead of farmhouses scattered, as in
Turkestan, indifferently over the country or situated among
the fields of the owner, spoke of a people among whom the
sterner habits of brigandage were unknown. Of the two races,
the Chinese were evidently born to have the upper hand ;
but whether they therefore enjoy life so thoroughly as the
easy-going Turki is a question open to doubt.
Yarkand, as I have said, was the last town in Turkestan
I should pass through, and here I had to make preparations
for the journey across the Himalayas. On entering the town
I received a letter from Colonel Bell, written on the Kara-
koram Pass, saying he had just heard of my being in Chinese
Turkestan, and telling me, instead of following him along the
well-known and extremely barren and uninteresting route
by Leh to India, to try the unexplored but direct road by
the Mustagh Pass on Baltistan and Kashmir. This was a
suggestion which delighted ma It was something quite new,
and promised to be difficult enough to be really worth doing.
I therefore set to with my preparations for it with a will.
The first thing, of course, was to get guides. Fortunately,
there are a large number of Baltis — about two thousand —
settled in the Yarkand district, and the Kashmir Aksakal
said he would easily be able to obtain men for me. Then
ponies had to be collected. Here, too, there was no difficulty,
for Yarkand abounds in ponies. I used to examine thirty or
forty a day. Sheepskin coats for the men, supplies for the
road, shoes for the ponies, etc., were also things which could
all be easily procured. So, having set one or two of the
merchants to work at these preparations, I took a look round
Yarkand.
The first place I visited was poor Dalgleish's house. For
Digitized by
Google
i837.] DALGLEISH.
lyy
ten or twelve years he had been settled in Yarkand as a trader
— a true pioneer of commerce — and for the last two he had
been the companion of Mr. Carey, of the India Civil Service,
in one of the most adventurous and daring journeys that
has ever been made in Central Asia — a journey right round
Chinese Turkestan and into the very heart of Tibet. He
was now in India, preparing to return to Yarkand, but he
was fated never to reach that place again. On his way there,
near the summit of the Karakoram Pass, he was treacherously
murdered by an Afghan, and so ended the career of one who
had done much for our good name in this distant land.
Every one who mentioned his name spoke of him with
kindliness and respect. It was hard to drive a bargain with
him, the traders said, as it is with every other Scotchman,,
but they appreciated this sign of business capacity, and they
liked his openness and fairness and truthfulness. Whenever
he could, he was ready to help them ; he regularly threw in
his lot with them, and lived amongst them in every way as
one of themselves. In this manner he secured their affection
to an extraordinary degree — to such an extent, in fact, that the
Russian consul at Kashgar afterwards told me that when one
of his servants, after his murder, came to him, the man could
not restrain himself from crying, evidently from unaffected
grief; and M. Petrovsky said he could never have believed
that an Asiatic could become so devoted to a European.
These are the men, quite unremarkable though they appear
when met with in ordinary life, who are the true missionaries
of all that is best in our civilization. Their real greatness is
only apparent when they are separated from us by the distance
of death — like a picture, coarse and rough when viewed too-
closely, but instinct with depth of feeling when viewed from
a distance. It is they who, going ahead, pave the way for
others to follow ; and every Englishman and every European
who visits Yarkand territory after Dalgleish, must owe a debt
Digitized by
Google
174 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vii.
of gratitude to the first impression of good feeling which he
established for us there.
And, relation of mine though he be, and biassed as I may
be thought towards him, I do not think that in this place I
ought to omit a mention of my uncle, Robert Shaw, the first
of all Englishmen, together with Hayward, to visit Yarkand,
and the officer selected by the Government of India, in Yakoob
Beg's time, as Political Agent to that prince. Schlagent-
weit, the only European who had ventured into Chinese
Turkestan from India before Shaw and Hayward, had been
murdered. Nothing was known of the country. It was hidden
in mystery far away beyond the Himalayas. Alone, in the
capacity of a merchant, he set out with a caravan to penetrate
into the weird unknown. On the confines of the country he
was overtaken by Hayward — an explorer as bold as himself,
who was afterwards murdered in Yasin, a valley of the Hindu
Kush. Together they were escorted on to Yarkand — together,
but separated, for they were always kept apart, and communi-
cation between them was forbidden. After many trials and
dangers, these two returned safely to India, with a favourable
report of the country. A year or two afterwards the Govern-
ment of India sent there an imposing mission under Sir
Douglas Forsyth, and subsequently Shaw again visited the
country as Political Agent He stayed there then for more
than a year ; he composed a valuable grammar and vocabulary
of the language, and also a history of the country, which is
now with his relatives, in manuscript. During this time he
instinctively attached himself to the people, and to illustrate
the lasting effect of the devotion which he evoked, I will give
one story. Two years ago the servant of an English officer
was travelling alone on the borders of this country, and
unexpectedly found himself in a peculiarly awkward position,
which placed him absolutely in the hands of a native official
This man could have ruined the servant, but, knowing he was
Digitized by
Google
x887.] CHINESE OFFICIALS, 175
in the employ of an Englishman, he said, "I too was once
an Englishman's servant; I was in the employn>ent of Shaw
Sahib, and out of gratitude to him I will now let you off."
The house where Shaw had lived chiefly, I was told, had all
been pulled down by the Chinese, and official yamens built in
its place. Dalgleish*s residence was a comfortable little native
house in the old city, where he used to sell his goods himself
Here the usual trays of fruit were brought me, and after
spending the morning there talking to the numerous visitors,
I returned to the inn and prepared for a visit I was to make
to the Chinese governor of Yarkand in the afternoon. Hitherto,
since leaving Peking, I had purposely kept from visiting the
Chinese officials, partly because I had no proper interpreter,
and partly because I was travelling in such a quiet way that
the official probably would not care to return my visit in a
wretched traveller's inn. Chinese officials surround themselves
with a good deal of state when they appear in public, and it
seems to go as much against the gfrain with them to visit a
stray foreigner in a traveller's serais as it would to the mayor
of an English town if he were expected to get into his full
livery and go with all civic ceremony to call upon a wandering
Chinaman putting up at the local Blue Posts. As a rule,
therefore, I merely sent my passport and my card up to the
chief official, said I had just arrived, and would leave the next
day, or whenever it was, and that I regretted I should not be
able to do myself the pleasure of calling on him. But this
governor of Yarkand showed particular civility, and sent me
several friendly messages, so I called upon him on the afternoon
after my arrival.
He received me with the usual politeness of a Chinese
official, but with more cordiality. His residence here in
Yarkand, at the very extremity of the Chinese Empire, was
of precisely the same pattern and character as those in Peking
itself, and the governor's dress was exactly similar to that of
Digitized by
Google
176 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
any official in the heart of China. In whatever part of the
Chinese Empire you visit an official, you will always find
both his residence and his official dress precisely the same :
the loose blue silk jacket and petticoat, and either the mush-
room hat in summer, or the pork-pie hat in winter. No
change or variation, whether the office is civil or military.
Diffisrence in rank is shown only by a slightly increased amount
of gold for the higher grades on the square plate of embroidery
in the centre of the jacket, and by the colour of the button
on the top of the hat.
The Governor of Yarkand received me in one of his private
rooms, and we had a long conversation together. He had
never been to Peking, and asked many questions about it, and
about the road by which I had come, which he said no Chinese
officials ever thought of using. An hour after I had reached the
inn again, he came to make a return call upon me, and in every
way showed a friendly feeling. This Amban was one of the
best governors Yarkand has had, and, contrary to the usual
custom of the Chinese officials, he had taken considerable pains
to construct canals for the extension of cultivation, and to build
new bazaars in the city.
Yarkand is the largest town I had seen in Turkestan. There
are, as everywhere in this country, two towns, the native and
the Chinese, but at Yarkand these are connected by a bazaar a
few hundred yards in length. The latter is almost entirely new,
but the native town is old and dilapidated. The houses are
built of mud, as a rule, and there are no very striking buildings
to arrest one's interest All the streets have that dusty, dirty,
uncared-for appearance so characteristic of Central Asian towns,
and outside the bazaars there is little life. Yarkand, however^
is the centre of a considerable trade, and in the autumn large
caravans start for and arrive from India at frequent intervals,
and the bazaars are then crowded.
A large number of the merchants engaged in this trade
Digitized by
Google
i887.] A SUMPTUOUS FEAST. 177
gave me one day a sumptuous feast in a fruit garden a short
distance outside Yarkand. Few people know the way to enjoy
life and make themselves comfortable better than these
merchants. We first of all sat about under the shade of the
trees, while huge bunches of grapes and delicious melons and
peaches were freshly plucked and brought to us to eat. Then
dinner was announced, and after water for washing the hands
had been passed round, we set to at dish after dish of " pillaos "
and stews, all beautifully cooked, and we ended up with a
pudding made of whipped egg and sugar and some other
ingredients, which it would be hard to beat anywhere. All
the time the merchants were chaffing away amongst themselves,
and were as "gay" and talkative as Frenchmen. You could
scarcely wish for better company or more genial hosts. On
the way home we had races, each merchant trying to make
out that his own horse was better than the others. These
men are a curious mixture of Eastern gravity and politeness,
and boyish spirits and fun. They will come to call on you,
and talk away with the greatest solemnity and deference. You
meet them next day out for a burst of enjoyment, and every
sign of gfravity is thrown away, and they are as free and natural
and full of life as children.
With the aid of a committee of some of these, my prepara-
tions for the attack of the Mustagh Pass progressed most
favourably. The services of a first-rate guide were secured;
his name was Wall, and he was a native of Askole, the nearest
village on the Baltistan side of the pass. He had come to
Yarkand by the route many years before, but undertook to
say he had not forgotten it, and could guide me by it all right
Beside him, three other Baltis were enlisted to carry loads, if
it should be found impossible to take ponies over the pass.
Thirteen ponies were bought, and four Ladakis engfaged to
look after them. Among these Ladakis was a man named
Mohamed Esa (formerly Drogpa), who had accompanied Messrs.
N
Digitized by
Google
178 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
Carey and Dalgleish to Tibet, and whom Colonel Bell had sent
back :to me to help me through. He was placed in charge of
the caravan, and made responsible for its efficiency. Three
complete sets of shoes for each pony were taken, and new pack-
saddles and blankets. All the men were thoroughly well
equipped with heavy sheepskin coats, fur caps, and new foot-
gear. Orders were sent on to Kugiar, the last principal village
on the Yarkand side, to have three weeks' supplies for men and
ponies ready there, and these supplies for the men included rice,
ghi (clarified butter), tea, sugar, and some sheep to drive along
with us, so that the men should be fit and work willingly ; for,
after all, the success of the enterprise would depend upon them,
not upon me. All I could do was to see that nothing which
foresight could provide for should be left undone before the
start was made. Lastly, we took some good strong ropes and a
pickaxe or two, to help us over the ice and bad ground.
All these preparations having been completed, we left
Yarkand on September 8. The next day we reached the
thriving little town of Kargalik. It was market day, and all
the roads were crowded with country people coming in to sell
their produce, and buy any necessaries for the week. I have
not mentioned these market days before, but they are a regular
institution in Turkestan. Each town and village fixes a day
in the week for its market day, and on that day the bazaars are
crowded with people, and it is then that the country people do
all their business. In small places the bazaar is absolutely
empty all the rest of the week ; the shops are there, but their
doors are shut Then on the market day everything bursts into
life, and hundreds of men and women from the country round,
all dressed in their best, come swarming in.
We put up that day in a delightful fruit garden, and my
bed was made in a bower of vines, where the grapes hung
in enormous clusters, ready to drop into my mouth. Two days
later we reached Kugiar, an extensive village, where all supplies
Digitized by
Google
i887.] H^E ENTER THE MOUNTAINS, 179
were gathered, in preparation for our plunge into the mountains.
We were now among the outlying spurs of the great barrier
which divides the plains of India from those of Turkestan.
Of this barrier the nearest range is called the Kuen-lun, the
centre the Mustagh or Karakoram, and the furthest the
Himalayas.
On leaving Kugiar we headed directly into these moun-
tains, and were fairly launched on our voyage of exploration,
though the first three marches had been traversed by members
of the Forsyth Mission. We crossed an easy pass named
the Tupa Dawan, and then ascended a valley in which were a
few huts and some felt tents belonging to a race called Pakhpu,
whom Dr. Bellew, the skilled ethnologist who accompanied
the Forsyth Mission, considered to be of a pure Aryan stock.
They were very fair, and their features fine and regular.
Leaving this valley, I crossed the Chiraghsaldi Pass, over
the main ridge of the Kuen-lun Mountains. The only aneroid
I had was unfortunately not made to register up to such
heights as the pass, but I computed its height at about sixteen
thousand feet. We were now getting into the heart of our
work, and as I looked out from the summit of that pass on to
the labyrinth of pathless mountains, rising into tier after tier
of snowy peaks, I felt that there was some real stern work
before us, and that each one of our little party would have
to brace himself up to do his very best if we wished to
accomplish the task that had been set us. There were now
no paths and no inhabitants. We were alone among the
mountains, and it was not only the difiiculties which they
might present that we had to contend against ; we also had
to be ever-watchful against an attack from the Kanjuti robbers^
who had for many years infested these parts, issuing from their
strongholds in Hunza, and raiding on caravans trading between
Yarkand and Leh by the Karakoram route, and even levying
blackmail from villages in the Kugiar district Three of the
Digitized by
Google
i8o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
men I had with me had actually been captured by these
robbers and afterwards sold into slavery. It was necessary to
take every precaution, and as it is their habit to attack at
night, and cut the ropes of the tent and let it down on the
top of you, if you are unwary enough to use one, we had to
live in the open, even on the glaciers, and, however cold it
might be, sheltering ourselves behind any friendly rock we
could find, and after dark always altering the position we had
ostentatiously assumed during daylight, so that if any Kanjutis
happened to have been watching us then, we might, under
the shelter of the night, stand less risk of them finding us.
Descending from the Chiraghsaldi Pass, we followed down
the pebbly bed of a stream. But soon the stream disappeared
under the stones, nor could we find grass or bushes for fuel.
Darkness came on, and with it a snowstorm ; but still we
plodded on, as under these circumstances there was no possi-
bility of encamping. Stumbling along over the heavy boulders,
we at last came across some bushes, and a little further on the
stream appeared again ; grass was found on its edges, and we
encamped for the night
On the following day we reached the Yarkand River at
Chiraghsaldi camping-ground — the furthest point reached by
Hayward on his march down the river nearly twenty years
before. The river was at this time of the year fordable, and
ran over a level pebbly bed, the width of the valley at the
bottom being three or four hundred yards. All along the
bottom were patches of jungle, and here and there stretches of
grass ; but the mountain-sides were quite bare.
Proceeding down the Yarkand River, we reached, the next
day, the ruins of half a dozen huts and a smelting furnace,
on a plain called Karash-tarim. There were also signs of
furrows, as of land formerly cultivated, and it is well known
that up to a comparatively recent period, certainly within eighty
years ago, this valley of the Yarkand River was inhabited.
Digitized by
Google
$
<
H
X
H
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] KHOJA MOHAMED GORGE. l8i
and spots like this, which included about a hundred and fifty
acres of arable land, were cultivated The district is known as
Raskam, which, I was told, is a corruption of R4st-kdn (a
true mine), a name which was probably given it on account of
the existence of mineral deposits there. Both on this journey
and another which I made down this valley in 1889, I found
the remains of old smelting furnaces in several places, and
was informed that copper was the mineral extracted. In the
Bazardarra valley, on the right bank of the Yarkand River,
there are said to be traces of gold. The Kanjuti raids were
the cause of the country becoming depopulated, and now that
these have been effectually stopped by the British Government,
we may expect to see Raskam, in future years, again spring
into life.
One march below Karash-tarim the valley narrowed con-
siderably, and high cliffs constantly approached the river,
making it necessary for us to cross and recross it frequently.
At length it became confined in a gorge, called the Khoja
Mohamed gorge, and was here shut in between cliffs of
enormous height and nearly perpendicular. Through this
gorge the river rushed with great force, and, as it was quite
unfordable, we were brought to a standstill. We unloaded
the ponies, and every man of us set to work to make a road
round the base of the cliff by throwing rocks and boulders
into the river, and so building up a way. By the next morning
we had succeeded in making a narrow pathway round the
cliff. The loads were first carried over this ; then the ponies
were carefully led along, till at last the whole party was
safely conveyed to the other side of this formidable obstacle.
A short distance below this, on the left bank of the
Yarkand River, we struck a tributary named the Surakwat,
up which led the route to the Mustagh Pass, so we here left
the valley of the Yarkand River. For a few hundred yards
above the junction the Surakwat flows through a very narrow
Digitized by
Google
i82 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
gorge, which the stream fills up completely, and through this
gorge the guide now led us, though I found, in 1889, that a
much better road led over the top. The boulders over which
the torrent dashed were covered with ice, and it was cruel work
taking the ponies up. They were constantly slipping and
falling back, cutting their hocks and knees to pieces. But we
got them through without accident, and emerged on to a wide
plain, evidently the bed of a lake, which must have been formed
by the rocky obstacle we had passed through before the stream
had cut its way down to its present level and thus afforded an
outlet to the dammed-up waters.
This plain, which was covered with jungle of dwarf birch and
willow or poplar, extended for about two miles. At a couple of
miles from the gorge, and again at about nine miles, con-
siderable streams flow in on the right bank of the Surakwat,
and, at a mile from the last, two more narrow gorges were
passed through; though here again, on my journey up here
in 1889, we succeeded in making a road round to circumvent
them. It was altogether a bad day's march for both men and
ponies, but at last, toward evening, we found the valley opening
to a wide plain, with plenty of scrub on it, and here we
encamped. Before us rose a great wall of snowy mountains,
with not the very smallest sign of a pass, though the guide said
we should have to cross them on the following day. I felt
some misgivings on looking at this barrier which now stopped
our way, for the guide frankly confessed that he had forgotten
the way across, and of course there was no sign of a path to
guide us. He said, however, that possibly, as we got nearer, he
might remember which turning we should have to take, and
with that amount of consolation we had to settle down for the
night.
We now had our first taste of real cold. We were about
fifteen thousand feet above the sea-level, and as soon as the sun
set one could almost see the cold stealing over the mountains — a
Digitized by
Google
i887.] THE ELATION OF DIFFICULTIES, 183
cold grey creeps over them, the running streams become coated
with ice, and as soon as we had had our dinner — we always
dined together, to save trouble and time in cooking — and
darkness had fairly fallen, we took up our beddings from the
places where we had ostentatiously laid them out to mislead
any prowling Kanjutis, and hurried off to deposit them behind
any rock which would shelter us from the icy wind which blew
down from the mountains. It is a curious fact, but when real
difficulties seem to be closing around, one's spirits rise. As
long as you have health — that is the main point to look after,
but it is easily attained in mountain travel — and provided that
you take plenty of food, difficulties seem only to make you
more and more cheery. Instead of depressing you, they only
serve to brace up all your faculties to their highest pitch ; and
though, as I lay down that night, I felt that for the next two or
three weeks we should have harder and harder work before us,
I recollect that evening as one of those in all my life in which I
have felt in the keenest spirits.
At the first dawn of day on the following morning we were
astir. The small stream was frozen solid, and the air bitingly
cold ; so we hurried about loading up, had a good breakfast,
and, as the sun rose, started off straight at the mountain wall
— a regular battlement of rocky peaks covered with snow,
where it was possible, but for the most part too steep for
snow to lie. After travelling for three or four miles, a valley
suddenly opened up to the left The guide immediately
remembered it, and said that up it was an easy pass which
would completely outflank the mountain barrier. The going
was good. I left the ponies, and in my eagerness hurried on
rapidly in front of them, straining to see the top of the pass,
and the " other side " — that will-o'-the-wisp which ever attracts
explorers and never satisfies them, for there is ever another
side beyond. The height was beginning to tell, and the pass
seemed to recede the nearer I approached it. One rise after
Digitized by
Google
i84 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. vii.
another I surmounted, thinking it would prove the summit,
but there was always another beyond. The valley was wide
and open, and the going perfectly easy, leading sometimes over
round boulders, but more often loose soil. At length I reached
a small lake, about a quarter of a mile in length, and a small
rise above it at the further end was the summit of the pass.
I rushed up it, and there before me lay the ** other side," and
surely no view which man has ever seen can excel that. To
describe the scene in words would be impossible. There are
no words with which to do so, and to attempt it with those
that are at our disposal would but stain its simple grandeur
and magnificence.
Before me rose tier after tier of stately mountains, among
the highest in the world — peaks of untainted snow, whose
summits reached to heights of twenty-five thousand, twenty-
six thousand, and, in one supreme case, twenty-eight thousand
feet above sea-level. There was this wonderful array of moun-
tain majesty set out before me across a deep rock-bound valley,
and away in the distance, filling up the head of this, could be
seen a vast glacier, the outpourings of the mountain masses
which give it birth. It was a scene which, as I viewed it,
and realized that this seemingly impregnable array must be
pierced and overcome, seemed to put the iron into my soul
and stifien all my energies for the task before me.
Buried in the stirring feelings to which such a scene gives
rise, I sat there for more than an hour, till the caravan
arrived, and then we slowly descended from the pass into the
valley bottom at our feet. The way was rough and steep, but
we reached the banks of the river without any serious difficulty.
Here, however, we were brought to a standstill, for there was a
sheer clifi" of a couple of hundred feet or so in height running
far away on either hand along the river's edge. This at first
seemed a serious obstacle, but I had noticed on the way down
some tracks of kyang (wild asses), and as there was no water
Digitized by
Google
iSS;.] THE KARAKORAM. i8s
above, I knew that these animals must get down to the river
to drink some way or other, and that where they could go we
could go also. I therefore went back to these tracks, carefully
followed them up, and was relieved to find they led down a
practicable " shoot " in the cliff. It was very steep and rocky^
but by unloading the ponies, and putting one man on to lead
each in front and two others to hold on to the tail behind^
we managed to let the ponies down one by one, and after a
good deal of labour found ourselves, bag and baggage, on the
edge of a river, which in some ways might be considered the
main branch of the Yarkand River.
This tributary, which the Baltis with me called the Shaks-
gam, but which the Kirghiz seems to know as the Oprang, was
previously unknown. It rises among the glaciers of the main
watershed. Two years later I followed it down to its junction
with the other branch of the Yarkand River.
Another geographical point of some importance I had now
discovered was, that between the Kuen-lun Range and the main
watershed which divides the rivers of Turkestan from those
flowing to India, and which is sometimes called the Mustagh
Range and sometimes the Karakoram, there lies a subsidiary
range, over which leads the Aghil Pass, which I had just
crossed. Hayward and the members of the Forsyth Mission,
when mapping the course of the Yarkand River, had made the
tributaries on the southern side run directly down from this
Mustagh or Karakoram Range ; but this was an error. The
tributaries which they met with flow from the intermediate
range, and that and the Oprang River lie in between this
northern branch of the Yarkand River, which they explored,
and the Mustagh Mountains.
A word now as to the proper name for the great watershed
between Turkestan and India. Why call it the Karakoram?
Karakoram means "black gravel," and no more inappropriate
name could be imagined for a range of the highest snowy peaks-
Digitized by
Google
1 86 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. vii.
in the world. The name Karakoram was apparently applied
to it because a pass to the eastward, where there is black gravel,
or something like it, is so called. But there is also a pass
called Mustagh across the range. Mustagh means "ice-
mountain," and surely that is a far more appropriate name for
this stately range of icy peaks, which form the watershed of
Asia.
To return to the narrative. We had now reached the waters
of the Oprang River. This we followed down for a mile or
two to a patch of jungle called Shaksgam. The valley bottom
was here of loose pebbles, and from a quarter to half a mile
broad. The river flowed over it in several branches, and was
generally fordable. On either bank the mountains rose very
steeply out of the valley, and were quite barren, except for a
small growth of the hardy wormwood. There were no trees,
and shrubs or bushes were only to be found in small patches
along the river-bed.
Next day we continued down the valley of the Oprang
-(Shaksgam) River, till we came to another, which my Baltis
called the Sarpo Laggo, flowing down from the main range and
joining it on, the left bank. This we ascended till we reached
a patch of jungle called Suget Jangal. Just before arriving
there I chanced to look up rather suddenly, and a sight met
my eyes which fairly staggered me. We had just turned a
comer which brought into view, on the left hand, a peak of
appalling height, which could be none other than K.2, 28,278
feet in height, second only to Mount Everest Viewed from
this direction, it appeared to rise in an almost perfect cone,
but to an inconceivable height. We were quite close under it
— perhaps not a dozen miles from its summit — and here on the
northern side, where it is literally clothed in glacier, there must
have been from fourteen to sixteen thousand feet of solid ice.
It was one of those sights which impress a man for ever, and
produce a permanent effect upon the mind — a lasting sense of
Digitized by
Google
i887.] K,2, 187
the greatness and grandeur of Nature's works — which he can
never lose or forget
For some time I stood apart, absorbed in the contemplation
of this wonderful sight, and then we marched on past Suget
Jangal till we reached the foot of the great glacier which
flows down from the Mustagh Pass. Here we bivouacked.
The tussle with these mountain giants was now to reach its
climax, and our subsequent adventures I will describe in a
separate chapter.
Digitized by
Google
i88 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap, viik
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MUSTAGH PASS.
** The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow !
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around those summits, as to show
How earth may reach to heaven, yet leave vain man below.'*
The description of the crossing of the Mustagh Pass I will
begin by quoting from the account which I gave in a letter
written to my father from the other side on my arrival in
Kashmir territory.
" On ascending towards the Mustagh Pass my real difficulties
began. Since my guides had crossed, an immense glacier had
advanced, completely blocking up the valley with ice and
immense boulders. For three days I dragged my ponies up
this. Twice I gave it up, and ordered the ponies to go round
by Ladak, while I went on with a few men, and twice I
resumed the struggle, till I got them on to the smooth snow
in the higher part of the mountain. It was terribly hard work.
From daybreak till after dark I was on my legs, first exploring
ahead, then returning and bringing on the party; and at the
great elevation we were at, one gets very much exhausted. At
night I lay on the ground in the open, warmly wrapped up in
a sheepskin bag.
" On the third day of the ascent proper, I sent two men on
Digitized by
Google
188;.] DESCENDING A PRECIPICE. 189
ahead to report on the pass. They returned at night to say
that the pass which used to be practicable for ponies was now
quite impassable, owing to ice having collected, and that the
only thing now was to go by the other pass (there are two
separate passes, the real Mustagh Pass and the one ten miles
to the west of it, which had once been practicable for ponies),
and bring back a number of men from the upper valleys of
the Skardu district to make a road for the ponies.
"The pass is over the main axis of the Himalayas, and
divides the Chinese dominions from the British dependencies.
It is also on the watershed between the rivers which flow into
the Indian Ocean and those which flow towards Turkestan.
So one might expect something of a pass, and it is, in fact,
one of the highest and most difficult in the Himalayas.
" The ascent was easy enough, leading over smooth snow,
but we went very slowly on account of the difficulty of breath-
ing. On reaching the summit we looked about for a way
down, but there was nothing but a sheer precipice, and blocks
of ice broken and tumbled about in such a way as to be quite
impracticable.
" I freely confess that I myself could never have attempted
the descent, and that I — an Englishman — was afraid to go first.
Luckily my guides were better plucked than myself, and, tying
a rope round the leading man's waist, the rest of us hung on
while he hewed steps across the ice-slope which led down to
the precipice.
"Step by step we advanced across it, all the time facing
the precipice, and knowing that if we slipped (and the ice was
very slippery) we should roll down the icy slope and over the
precipice into eternity. Halfway across, my Ladaki servant,
whom Colonel Bell had sent back to me as a man thoroughly
acquainted with Himalayan travel, turned back saying he was
trembling all over and could not face the precipice. It rather
upset me seeing a bom hill-man so affected ; but I pretended
Digitized by
Google
I90 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. viii.
not to care a bit, and laughed it oS,pour encourager les autreSy
as the thing had to be done.
** After a time, and a very nasty time it was, we reached
terra firma in the shape of a large projecting ledge of rock,
and from there began the descent of the precipice. The icy
slope was a perfect joke to this. We let ourselves down very
gradually from any little ledge or projecting piece of rock. On
getting halfway down, I heard my Ladaki servant appealing
to me from above. He had mustered up courage to cross the
icy slope, and had descended the precipice for a few steps, and
was now squatting on a rock salaaming profusely to me with
both hands, and saying he dare not move another step, and
that he would go back and take my ponies round by Ladak.
So I sent him back.
" For six hours we descended the precipice, partly rock and
partly icy slope, and when I reached the bottom and looked
back, it seemed utterly impossible that any man could have
come down such a place.
"For several hours after we trudged on in the moonlight
over the snow, with crevasses every fifty yards or so. Often
we fell in, but had no accident ; and at last, late at night, we
reached a dry spot, and I spread out my rugs behind a rock
while one of my men made a small fire of some dry grass and
a couple of alpenstocks broken up to cook tea by. After
eating some biscuits with the tea, I rolled myself up in my
sheepskin and slept as soundly as ever I did."
This rough description needs some amplification and expla-
nation, but I give it as it stands, because it was written only a
few days after I had crossed the pass, and with the memories
of it fresh on me. When we ascended the valley of the Sarpo
Laggo stream towards the Mustagh Pass, we came to a point
where the valley was blocked by what appeared to be enormous
heaps of broken stones and fragments of rock. These heaps
were between two and three hundred feet in height, and
Digitized by
Google
i887.] AMONG THE GLACIERS. 191
stretched completely across the valley. I was on ahead by
myself, and when I saw these mounds of d^bris^ I thought we
might have trouble in taking ponies over such rough obstacles ;
but I was altogether taken aback when, on coming up to the
heaps, I found that they were masses of solid ice, merely
covered over on the surface with a thin layer of this rocky
dibrisy which served to conceal the surface of the ice imme-
diately beneath. And my dismay can be imagined when, on
ascending one of the highest of the mounds, I found that they
were but the end of a series which extended without interrup-
tion for many miles up the valley to the snows at the foot of
the pass. We were, in fact, at the extremity of an immense
glacier. This was the first time I had actually been on a
glacier, and I had never realized till now how huge and con-
tinuous a mass of ice it is. Here and there, breaking through
the mounds of stone, I had seen cliffs of what I thought was
black rock, but on coming close up to these I found them to
be of solid dark green ice. I discovered caverns, too, with
transparent walls of clear, clean ice, and enormous icicles
hanging like fringes from the roof. It was an astonishing and
wonderful sight ; but I was destined to see yet more marvellous
scenes than this in the icy region upon which I was now
entering.
To take a caravan of ponies up a glacier like this seemed
to me an utter impossibility. The guides thought so too, and
I decided upon sending the ponies round by the Karakoram Pass
to Leh, and going on myself over the Mustagh Pass with a
couple of men. This would have been a risky proceeding, for
if we did not find our way over the pass we should have
scarcely enough provisions with us to last us till we could
return to an inhabited place again. Supplies altogether were
running short, and the longer we took in reaching the pass,
the harder we should fare if we did not succeed in getting over
it. But while I was deciding upon sending the ponies back.
Digitized by
Google
192 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, viit
the caravan men were gallantly leading them up the glacier.
I rejoined the men, and we all helped the ponies along as well
as we could ; hauling at them in front, pushing behind, and
sometimes unloading and carrying the loads up the stone-
covered mounds of ice ourselves. But it was terribly hard and
trying work for the animals. They could get no proper foot-
hold, and as they kept climbing up the sides of a mound they
would scratch away the thin layer of stones on the surface, and
then, coming on to the pure ice immediately below, would slip
and fall and cut their knees and hocks about in a way which
distressed me much. I did not see how this sort of thing could
last We had only advanced a few hundred yards, and there
were from fifteen to twenty miles of glacier ahead. I therefore
halted the ponies for the day, and went on with a couple of
men to reconnoitre. We fortunately found, in between the
glacier and the mountain-side, a narrow stretch of less im-
practicable ground, along which it would be possible to take
the ponies. This we marked out, and returned to our bivouac
after dark.
That night we passed, as usual, in the open, thoroughly
exhausted after the hard day's work, for at the high altitudes
we had now reached the rarefaction of the air makes one
tired very quickly, and the constant tumbling about on the
slippery glacier in helping the ponies over it added to one's
troubles.
At daybreak on the following morning we started again,
leading the ponies up the route we had marked out ; but a
mile from the point where our previous exploration had ended
we were confronted by another great glacier flowing down
from the left. We now had a glacier on one side of us,
mountains on the other, and a second glacier right across our
front At this time my last remaining pair of boots were
completely worn out, and my feet so sore from the bruises
they received on the glacier I could scarcely bear to put
Digitized by
Google
CAMP ON THB GLACIER, MUSTAGH PASS.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] IN A SEA OF ICE. 193
them to the ground So I stayed behind with the ponies,
while two men went on to find a way through the obstacles
before us. The men returned after a time, and said they could
find no possible way for the ponies; but they begged me to
have a look myself, saying that perhaps by my good fortune
I might be able to find one.
I accordingly, with a couple of men, retraced my steps
down the edge of the main glacier for some little distance,
till we came to a point where it was possible to get ponies
on to the glacier and take them into the middle of it We
then ascended a prominent spot on the glacier, from which
we could obtain a good view all round. We were in a sea
of ice. There was now little of the rocky moraine stuff with
which the ice of the glacier had been covered in its lower
part, and we looked out on a vast river of pure white ice,
broken up into myriads of sharp needle-like points. Snowy
mountains rose above us on either hand, and down their sides
rolled the lesser glaciers, like clotted cream pouring over the
lip of a cream-jug; and rising forbiddingly before us was
the cold icy range we should have to cross.
This was scarcely the country through which to take a
caravan of ponies, but I made out a line of moraine extending
right up the main glacier. We got on to this, and, following it
up for some distance, found, to our great relief, that it would
be quite possible to bring ponies up it on to the smooth snow
of the nM at the head of the glacier. Having ascertained
this beyond a doubt, we returned late in the afternoon towards
the spot where we had left our ponies. Darkness overtook
us before we reached it We wandered about on the glacier
for some time, and nearly lost our way; but at last, quite
worn out, reached our little caravan once more.
That night we held a council of war as to which of the
two Mustagh Passes we should attack. There are two passes,
known as the Mustagh, which cross the range. One, to the
O
Digitized by
Google
194 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. viii.
east, that is to our left as we were ascending the glacier, is
known as the Old Mustagh Pass, and was in use in former
days, till the advance of ice upon it made it so difficult that
a new one was sought for, and what is known as the New
Mustagh Pass, some ten miles further west along the range,
had been discovered. It was over this latter pass that the
guides hoped to conduct our party. They said that even
ponies had been taken across it by means of ropes and by
making rough bridges across the crevasses. No European
had crossed either of them, but Colonel Godwin-Austen, in
1862, reached the southern foot of the new pass in the course
of his survey of Baltistan. The New Mustagh Pass seemed
the most promising of the two, and I therefore decided upon
sending two men on the following morning to reconnoitre it
and report upon its practicability.
At the first streak of daylight the reconnoiterers set out,
and the remainder of us afterwards followed with the ponies
along the route which we had explored on the previous day.
We took the ponies up the glacier without any serious difficulty,
and in the evening halted close up to the head of the glacier.
At dusk the two men who had been sent out to reconnoitre
the new pass returned, to say that the ice had so accumulated
on it that it would be now quite impossible to take ponies
over, and that it would be difficult even for men to cross
it. The plan which they now suggested was to leave the
ponies behind, and cross the range by the Old Mustagh Pass,
push on to Askoli, the first village on the south side of the
range, and from there send back men with supplies for the
ponies and the men with them sufficient to enable the caravan
to reach Shahidula, on the usual trade route between Yarkand
and Kashmir. This was evidently all we could do. We could
not take the ponies any further, and we could not send them
back as they were, for we had nearly run out of supplies, and
Shahidula, the nearest point at which fresh supplies could be
Digitized by
Google
1887.] A CRITICAL STAGE. 195
obtained, was one hundred and eighty miles distant. All now
depended upon our being able to cross the pass. If we were
not able to, we should have to march this one hundred and
eighty miles back through the mountains with only three
or four days' supplies to support us. We might certainly have
eaten the ponies, so would not actually have starved ; but we
should have had a hard struggle for it, and there would still
have been the range to cross at another point
Matters were therefore approaching a very critical stage,
and that was an anxious night for me. I often recall it, and
think of our little bivouac in the snow at the foot of the range
we had to overcome. The sun sank behind the icy mountains,
the bright glow disappeared from them, and they became
steely hard while the grey cold of night settled shimmering
down upon them. All around was pure white snow and ice,
breathing out cold upon us. The little pools and streamlets
of water which the heat of the sun had poured off the glacier
during the day were now gripped by the frost, which seemed
to creep around ourselves too, and huddle us up together.
We had no tent to shelter us from the biting streams of air
flowing down from the mountain summits, and we had not
sufficient fuel to light a fire round which we might lie. We
had, indeed, barely enough brushwood to keep up a fire for
cooking; but my Chinese servant cooked a simple meal of
rice and mutton for us all. We gathered round the fire to eat
it hot out of the bowl, and then rolled ourselves up in our
sheepskins and went to sleep, with the stars twinkling brightly
above, and the frost gripping closer and closer upon us.
Next morning, while it was yet dark. Wall, the guide,
awoke us. We each had a drink of tea and some bread, and
then we started off to attack the pass. The ponies, with
nearly all the baggage, were left behind under the charge of
Liu-san, the Chinaman, and some of the older men. All we
took with us was a roll of bedding for myself, a sheepskin
Digitized by
Google
196 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. viii.
coat for each man, some native biscuits, tea and a large tea-
kettle, and a bottle of brandy. The ascent to the pass was
easy but trying, for we were now not far from nineteen thousand
feet above sea-level, and at that height, walking uphill through
deep snow, one quickly becomes exhausted. We could only
take a dozen or twenty steps at a time, and we would then
bend over on our sticks and pant as if we had been running
hard uphill. We were tantalized, too, by the apparent nearness
of the pass. Everything here was on a gigantic scale, and
what seemed to be not more than an hour's walk from the
camp was in fact a six hours' climb. It was nearly midday
when we reached the top of the pass, and what we saw there
I have already related in the letter quoted above. There was
nothing but a sheer precipice, and those first few moments
on the summit of the Mustagh Pass were full of intense anxiety
to me. If we could but get over, the crowning success of my
expedition would be gained. But the thing seemed to me
simply an impossibility. I had had no experience of Alpine
climbing, and I had no ice-axes or other mountaineering
appliances with me. I had not even any proper boots. All
I had for foot-gear were some native boots of soft leather,
without nails and without heels — mere leather stockings, in
fact — which gave no sort of grip upon an icy surface. How,
then, I should ever be able to get down the icy slopes and
rocky precipices I now saw before me I could not think ; and
if it had rested with me alone, the probability is we never
should have got over the pass at all.
What, however, saved our party was my holding my tongue.
I kept quite silent as I looked over the pass, and waited to
hear what the men had to say about it They meanwhile
were looking at me, and, imagining that an Englishman never
went back from an enterprise he had once started on, took
it as a matter of course that, as I gave no order to go back,
I meant to go on. So they set about their preparations for
Digitized by
Google
-<
o
S
u
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
i887.] A PERILOUS ICE-SLOPE. 197
the descent We had brought an ordinary pickaxe with us,
and Wali went on ahead with this, while the rest of us followed
one by one behind him, each hanging on to a rope tied round
Wall's waist to support him in case he slipped while hewing
steps across the ice-slope. This slope was of hard ice, very
steep, and, thirty yards or so below the line we took, ended
in an ice-fall, which again terminated far beneath in the head
of a glacier at the foot of the pass. Wali with his pickaxe
hewed a way step by step across the ice-slope, so as to reach
the rocky cliff by which we should have to descend on to
the glacier below. We slowly edged across the slope after
him, but it was hard to keep cool and steady. From where
we stood we could see nothing over the end of the slope but
the glacier many hundreds of feet below us. Some of the
men were so little nervous that they kicked the fragments
of ice hewed out by Wali down the slope, and laughed as
they saw them hop down it and with one last bound dis-
appear altogether. But an almost sickening feeling came on
me as I watched this, for we were standing on a slope as
steep as the roof of a house. We had no ice-axes with
which to anchor ourselves or give us support ; and though I
tied handkerchiefs, and the men bits of leather and cloth,
round the insteps of our smooth native boots, to give us a
little grip on the slippery ice, I could not help feeling that
if any one of us had lost his foothold, the rest of us would
never have been able to hold him up with the rope, and that
in all likelihood the whole party would have been carried
away and plunged into the abyss below. Outwardly I kept
as cool and cheerful as I could, but inwardly I shuddered at
each fresh step I took. The sun was now pouring down on
to the ice, and just melted the surface of the steps after they
were hewn, so that by the time those of us who were a few
paces behind Wali reached a step, the ice was just covered
over with water, and this made it still more slippery for our
Digitized by
Google
193 THE HEART OF A COXTIXENT. [chap. viii.
soft leather boots, which had now become almost slimy on
the surface. It was under these circumstances that my Ladaki
servant Drogpa gave in. He was shaking all over in an
exaggerated shiver, and so unsteady, I thought he would slip
at any moment, and perhaps carry us all with him. We
were but at the beginning of our trials. We had not even
begun the actual descent yet, but were merely crossing to
a point from which we should make it. It was dangerous
to have such a man with us, so I told him he might return
to the ponies and go round with thenu
At last we reached the far side of the slope, and found
ourselves on a projecting piece of rock protruding through the
ice. Here we could rest, but only with the prospect of still
further difficulties before us. We were at the head of the rocky
precipice, the face of which we should have to descend to reach
the ice-slopes which extended to the glacier at the foot of the
pass. At such heights as those which we had now reached,
where the snow and ice lie sometimes hundreds of feet thick,
it is only where it is very steep that the bare rock shows through.
The cliff we had now to descend was an almost sheer precipice :
its only saving feature was that it was rough and rugged, and
so afforded some little hold for our hands and feet Yet even
then we seldom got a hold for the whole hand or whole foot
All we generally found was a little ledge, upon which we could
grip with the tips of the fingers or side of the foot The men
were most good to me, whenever possible guiding my foot into
some secure hold, and often supporting it there with their hands ;
but at times it was all I could do to summon sufficient courage
to let myself down on to the veriest little crevices which had to
support me. There was a constant dread, too, that fragments
of these ledges might give way with the weight upon them ; for
the rock was very crumbly, as it generally is when exposed to
severe frosts, and once I heard a shout from above, as a huge
piece of rock which had been detached came crashing past me,
Digitized by
Google
i887.] THE LAST MAN DOWN, 199
and as nearly as possible hit two of the men who had already
got halfway down.
We reached the bottom of the cliff without accident, and
then found ourselves at the head of a long ice-slope extending
down to the glacier below. Protruding through the ice were
three pieces of rock, which would serve us as successive halting-
placesy and we determined upon taking a line which led by
them. We had brought with us every scrap of rope that could
be spared from the ponies' gear, and we tied these and all the
men's turbans and waist-clothes together into one long rope, by
which we let a man down the ice-slope on to the first projecting
rock. As he went down he cut steps, and when he had reached
the rock we tied the upper end of the rope firmly on to a rock
above, and then one by one we came down the slope, hanging
on to the rope and making use of the steps which had been cut.
This was, therefore, a comparatively easy part of the descent ;
but one man was as nearly as possible lost He slipped, fell
over on his back, and came sliding down the slope at a frightful
pace. Luckily, however, he still managed to keep hold of the
rope with one hand, and so kept himself from dashing over the
ice-fall at the side of the slope ; but when he reached the rock
his hand was almost bared of skin, and he was shivering with
fright Wali, however, gave him a sound rating for being so
careless, and on the next stage made him do all the hardest
part of the work.
The other men got down the slope without mishap, and then
came the last man. He, of course, could not have the benefit
of a rope to hang on by, for he would have to untie it from the
rock and bring it with him. Wali had selected for this, the
most dangerous piece of work in the whole descent, the man
who had especially troubled me by knocking pieces of ice over
the precipice when we were on the ice-slope at the head of the
pass. He was one of the slaves I had released at Yarkand ;
an incessant grumbler, and very rough, but, next to Wali, the
Digitized by
Google
200 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. viii.
best man I had for any really hard work. He tied the end of
the rope round his waist, and then slowly and carefully came
down the steps which had been hewn in the slope. We at the
end of the rope pulled it in at every step he took, so that if he
slipped, though he might fall past us, we should be able to haul
in the rope fast, and so perhaps save him from the ice-fall. He
reached our rock of refuge in safety, and we then in the same
manner descended two more stages of the ice-slope, and finally
reached a part where the slope was less steep, and we could
proceed without cutting steps the whole way.
At last, just as the sun set, we reached the glacier at the
foot of the pass. We were in safety once more. The tension
was over, and the last and greatest obstacle in my journey
had been surmounted. Those moments when I stood at the
foot of the pass are long to be remembered by me — moments
of intense relief, and of deep gratitude for the success that
had been granted. Such feelings as mine were now cannot
be described in words, but they are known to every one who
has had his heart set on one great object and has accomplished
it. I took one last look at the pass, never before or since
seen by a European, and then we started away down the
gliacier to find some bare spot on which to lay our rugs and
rest
The sun had now set, but, fortunately for us, there was an
abundance of light, and the night was marvellously beautiful,
so that, tired as I was, I could not but be impressed by it.
The moon was nearly full, the sky without a cloud, and in the
amphitheatre of snowy mountains and among the icy seracs of
the glacier, not one speck of anything but the purest white was
visible. The air at these altitudes, away from dust and with
no misty vapour in it, was absolutely clear, and the soft silvery
rays of the moon struck down upon the glistening mountains
in unsJuUied radiance. The whole effect was of some enchanting
fairy scene; and the sternness of the mountains was slowly
Digitized by
Google
18870 CREVASSES.
softened down till lost, and their beauty in its purest form alone
remained.
With our senses enervated by such a scene as this, and
overcome with delight as we were at having successfully crossed
the pass, we pushed on down the glacier in a dreamy, careless
way, perfectly regardless of the dangers which lay hidden around
us. Under ordinary circumstances we should have proceeded
cautiously down a glacier which, beautiful though it was, had
its full share of crevasses ; and it was only when I turned round
and found one man missing, that I realized how negh'gent we
had been. We retraced our steps, and found the poor fellow
had dropped down a crevasse, the mouth of which had been
covered with a thin coating of ice and snow, which had given
way under his weight, so that he had dropped through. Very
fortunately, the crevasse was not wide, and after falling about
fifteen feet, he had been wedged in between the two sides by
the load of my bedding which he was carrying ; so by letting
a rope down we were able to extricate him in safety. This
taught us a lesson, and for the rest of the way we went along
roped together, as we ought to have been from the first, and
tested each step as we advanced.
I now kept in rear, and the man with my bedding was in
front of me. As we were closed up during a temporary halt,
I detected a strong smell of brandy coming from the bundle of
bedding. A distracting thought occurred to me. I tore open
the bundle, and there was my last bottle of brandy broken !
Lady Walsham, on my leaving Peking, had insisted upon giving
me at least two bottles of brandy for the journey. I had drunk
one in the Gobi Desert, and I had made up my mind to keep
the other till the day I had crossed the Mustagh Pass, but here
it was broken, and the brandy wasted, just when both the men
and myself were really needing something to pull us together.
The bundle of bedding had been thrown over the pass to save
carrying it down, and though the bottle had been wrapped
Digitized by
Google
202 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. viii.
up in my sheepskin sleeping-bag, it had been smashed to
pieces.
About eleven o'clock we at last reached a piece of ground
on the mountain-side free from snow, and here we halted for
the night. There was no wood, and only a few roots of weeds
about with which to light a fire, so we had to break up a couple
of our alpenstocks to make a small fire, by which we managed
to boil sufficient water to make a few cups of tea. We had
some biscuit with that, and then I got into my sheepskin bag,
and the men wrapped themselves up in their sheepskin coats,
and we lay down and slept as if nothing could ever wake us
again. The work and anxiety on the last few days had been
very great, and on this day we had been on the move for
eighteen hours continuously. Now the worst was over, and we
slept proportionately to the work we had been doing.
But at daybreak the next morning we were on our legs again.
We had still a long way to go before we could reach Askoli,
the nearest village, and our men remaining behind on the pass
were waiting for supplies. We had to start without anything
to warm us, for we could find no materials for a fire ; but at
about ten o'clock, at a point near where our glacier joined the
great Baltoro glacier, we found an old hut, built at the time
when this route was in use, and from the fragments of wood
about we made up our first good fire, and had a fairly sub-
stantial meal. But we could not indulge ourselves at all freely,
for we were very short of provisions. We had left with the men
on the pass all but just sufficient to carry us through to Askoli,
and a few mouthfuls of meat, with some biscuit and some tea,
were all we could allow ourselves. Having eaten this and rested
for an hour, we again pushed on, and struck the Baltoro glacier
nearly opposite the great Masher Brum peak, which stands up
over twenty-five thousand feet high just across the glacier.
Then, turning to our left in the opposite direction to Askoli,
we could see far away up this, the largest mountain glacier in
Digitized by
Google
i887.] THE BALTORO GLACIER, 203
the world, other peaks of even greater height, rising like snowy
spires in the distance. There are four peaks over twenty-six
thousand feet at the head of the Baltoro glacier, and away to
our left, though hidden from us, was the peak K.2. Five years
afterwards, Sir William Conway's party explored the entire
length of the glacier, and ascended a peak twenty-three thousand
feet in height at its head ; but, fascinating though it would have
been to have wandered among these mountain giants, in a region
unsurpassed for sublimity and grandeur by any in the world,
I could only now think of reaching an inhabited spot again as
rapidly as possible.
We turned to the right, then down the glacier, keeping along
the moraine close to the mountain-side. This and the two
following were days of agony to me, for my native boots were
now m places worn through til the bare skin of my foot was
exposed, and I had to hobble along on my toes or my heels to
keep the worn-out part by the balls of my feet from the sharp
stones and rocky dibris of the glacier. On account of this
tenderness of my feet, I was always slipping, too, falling and
bruising my elbows, or cutting my hands on the rough stones
in trying to save myself!
All that day we plodded wearily along down the glacier,
till at sunset we came upon a little clump of fir trees on the
mountain-side. Here we were able to make up as big a fire
as we wished, and if we could only have had more to eat,
would have been perfectly happy ; but there was now no meat
left, and tea and biscuit was all we had to eat Next day we
reached the end of the glacier, and here I had an unpleasant
little accident. A strong gushing stream was flowing out of
the glacier, and this we had to cross. It was more than waist-
deep, and filled with blocks of ice from the glacier. I had no
change of clothes, and when good old Shukar Ali — a faithful
attendant, who afterwards accompanied me on two other
journeys — volunteered to carry me over on his back, I could
Digitized by
Google
204 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. viii
not resist the temptation of what I thought would be a dry
passage. But halfway over Shukar Ali slipped ; in struggling
to save himself he kept pushing me under water, till I was
nearly drowned, and when I reached the opposite side of the
stream I was numbed through with cold. We halted for an
hour while I got into my sleeping-bag, and my clothes were
spread out in the sun to dry, and then we pushed on again
down a narrow rock-bound valley. At night we slept in a
cave, and next day made our last march into Askoli. Never
did I think we were going to reach that spot. By midday we
saw its green trees and fields in the distance ; but I could only
get along slowly, as the way was very rough and stony. At
last, however, at four o'clock, we did reach it We sent for the
headman, and told him to bring us some food. A bed was
brought me to lie on, and then, with a stewed fowl and some
rice to eat, fresh life and energy came into me.
But that was a dirty little village! The trees and the
fields looked fresh and green, but the houses and the in-
habitants were repulsively dirty ; and the latter by no means
well-disposed. These mountain people are dreadfully nervous
about strangers. They had thought the way into their country
from the north was entirely closed, and they did not at all
welcome this proof that it was not. Wali, the guide, was him-
self a native of this village, which he had left some thirty years
before. Another of my men also belonged to it. But they
said they feared these people would do some injury to them for
having shown me the way, and they kept by me constantly,
and left the village with me, subsequently returning to Yarkand
by Leh and the Karakoram Pass, instead of directly by the
Mustagh Pass, as they might have done.
Immediately after we had had something to eat, we set
about preparing to send back supplies to the men and ponies
on the pass. With great difficulty we induced the people to
do this ; and on the following day a party was started off back
Digitized by
Google
i887.] ''CORNERED'' BETWEEN TWO GLACIERS. 205
towards the Mustagh Pass. They took with them ropes and
poles, and though three men were badly injured in doing so,
they succeeded in crossing the pass and giving my men the
needful supplies.
I would now willingly have had a rest, but, though I could
not start on the day following our arrival, for I was seriously
unwell from having, in the excess of my hunger, eaten too
much of the messy greasy dishes the inhabitants had provided
for me, on the day after I set out to try the other Mustagh
Pass — what is called the New Mustagh Pass. It was depressing,
just as I had reached the first village on the Indian side, to
have to turn my back on India; but I did not like to leave
this pass untried, and with Wall and a party of men from
Askoli we set out on the second day after our arrival to
explore it.
These men of Askoli were in dread of the mountains, and
on the first evening, at the foot of a mountain whose summit
was supposed to be the abode of a guardian deity, they,
although Mohammedans, sacrificed a bullock to this deity,
and prayed and salaamed to it. As they subsequently ate
the bullock, and as I paid for it, this little ceremony was
doubtless very helpful to them. At any rate, they were much
more cheerful after it, and as I now had some new foot-gear,
we were able to push along rapidly up the Punmah glacier.
But on the third day from Askoli, opposite a camping-ground
called Skinmang, we were brought to a standstill. At this
point the glacier flowing down from the New Mustagh Pass
joins the Punmah glacier, and we were completely " cornered "
between the two glaciers. To reach the pass we should have
had to cross the glacier flowing down from it; but this we
found it impossible to do, for just at this point there had
evidently been an immense ice-slip on to the glacier, and
gigantic blocks of ice were tumbled about one on the top of the
other in a way which made it perfectly impossible to get any
Digitized by
Google
2o6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. viii.
footing at all on the glacier. So we turned round and faced
for Askoli once more.
I think now of that wonderful glacier region, and the amphi-
theatre of snowy peaks at the head of the Punmah glacier,
and recall all the marvellous beauties of a scene such as can
only be witnessed in a few rarely visited spots on the face of
the earth, but at the time my thoughts were almost entirely
directed towards India. I was wearied out by my struggle
with the mountains, and longed to be free of them and at rest
once more.
On the day after our return to Askoli, the men who had
been sent by the Old Mustagh Pass to the party with the
ponies arrived back also. They had handed over the supplies
to them, and Liu-san, Drog^a, and the rest had started off
to take the ponies round by the Karakoram Pass to Leh.
Having satisfied myself about this, I set out by double marches
for Kashmir and the Punjab. Just beyond Askoli we had to
cross one of those rope bridges so common in the Himalayas.
A rope bridge is made of three thick ropes of plaited birch-
twigs. In crossing, you tread on one and support yourself
by the other two, one on each side. This particular bridge
led across a narrow rocky chasm, at the bottom of which the
river from the Baltoro rushed foaming along. It was certainly
a disagreeable place to have to cross, but I was astonished to
find that Wali, the man who had crossed the Mustagh Pass with-
out the slightest sign of nervousness, and certainly without any
hesitation, absolutely refused at first to cross this bridge. To
me it seemed such a paltry thing, after what we had so recently
gone through, and with two ropes to hang on by there seemed
no danger at all ; but Wali shivered and shook, and could
only be induced to come over when he had two men to support
him. This is one of the most remarkable instances I have met
with of a man, who had no fear when faced by one form of
danger, being totally taken aback when faced by another.
Digitized by
Google
H
O
Q
O
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
1887.] BALTISTAN. 207
We then followed down the valley of the Braldo River till
it joined the open Shigar valley, and here at last I was able
to mount a pony again, and, instead of plodding wearily along,
to travel in comfort and enjoy the wonderful scenery around
me. How great a difference one's mere animal feelings make
in the ability to appreciate the beauties of nature ! Worn and
tired out, it was only something unusually striking that had
produced any impression upon me, and I would pass by peaks
of marvellous grandeur with only a weary upward glance
at them, and sometimes even a longing that they had never
existed to bar my way and keep me from my journey's end.
But now, seated on the back of a pony — miserable little animal
though it was — I had no longer that load of weariness weighing
upon me, and could quietly drink in all the pleasure which
looking on that glorious mountain scenery gives.
The Shigar valley is from two to three miles broad ; its
bottom is covered over with village lands, where apricot trees are
grown in hundreds, and these apricot trees now, in the autumn
season, were clothed in foliage of every lovely tint of red and
purple and yellow. This mass of bright warm foliage filled the
valley l)ottom, then above it rose the bare rugged mountain-
sides, and crowning these the everlasting snows. The sun shone
out in an unclouded, deep-blue sky; the icy blasts of the
Mustagh were left behind for good and all ; and we were in
an ideal climate, with no extremes of either heat or cold
to try us. The grave, anxious look on the men's faces
passed away; they now stepped cheerily along by my side,
chaffing over all the difficulties they had gone through, and,
at each village we came to, taking a fill of dried apricots and
grapes and walnuts, so plentiful in this fruitful valley.
The country we were now in was Baltistan, the inhabitants
of which — called Baltis — are a patient, docile, good-natured
race, whom one hardly respects, but whom one cannot help
liking in a compassionate, pitying way. The poor Balti belongs
Digitized by
Google
2o8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. viii.
to one of those races which has gone under in the struggle of
nations. In their better days the Baltis are said to have been
able to fight well ; but their fighting-days are past. They
could not resist the Dogra invasion ; and now they are ruled
by a foreign race, and because they were such good carriers,
and because the roads through their own and the adjoining
countries were so bad, it fell out that they, were employed more
and more for carrying purposes, till the patient, long-suffering
Balti coolie became a well-known feature in the valleys of
this frontier. There is little that is strong or masculine about
the Balti to cause one to admire him, but yet one likes
him for his very patience and the ease with which he can be
pleased. And among these Baltis I have employed, have
been some for whom I have borne respect for their intense
devotion to what they believed to be their duty. I now was
on the eve of parting with those five who brought me over the
Mustagh Pass, and for Wali, their headman, I entertain a
regard such as I do for few other men. I picture him now as
he was first brought before me at the inn at Yarkand — a short,
thick-set man, with an iron-grey beard, a prominent, rather
hooked nose, and an expression of determination and proud
indifference to danger about his chin and underlip. Asked if
he were willing to conduct me over the Mustagh Pass, he
replied that he did not want to go, but if he were really
required he would undertake to guide me ; the only condition
he would make would be that I should not look at a map.
He had heard Englishmen were rather inclined to guide
themselves and trust the map rather than the man with them ;
if I was going to do that, I might, but he would not go with
me. On the other hand, if I would trust him, he would take
me safely over. On this understanding I engaged him. No
one could have more loyally carried out his compact, and
but for him we should never have been able to cross the
Mustagh Pass. He went to work in a steady, self-reliant
Digitized by
Google
188?.] / TAKE LEAVE OF AfV BALTIS. 209
way which gave every one confidence, and all the men looked
up to him and obeyed him implicitly. The more I see of
men like him, the more convinced I am, that weak in many
respects though such men as these Baltis are, yet if once they
are given responsibility, shown trust, and left to work out
their own salvation, they develop many latent qualities which
probably neither they nor anybody else believed to be in them.
Old Wali went back to Yarkand by Leh, and three years
later, when I again visited Yarkand, he came to see me, looking
precisely the same, and dressed, I believe, in the very same
clothes as when we had parted, and it was a real pleasure to
see again a man who had done me such loyal service.
Another of the Baltis who had done excellent work was the
slave whose release I had purchased at Yarkand. He was a
wild-looking character, but the hardest-working man I have
known. Now that he had regained his freedom, was being
liberally paid, and was on his way home, he did not mind how
much work he did, and all through the march from Yarkand
he behaved splendidly. We passed by his native village one day
as we were marching through Baltistan, and left him there.
But on the following day he caught us up again, carrying an
immense load of fruit and provision for a big dinner for the
men. He had brought all this twelve miles, and he came and
kissed my hands and feet, and said he could not allow us to
go away without showing how grateful he felt These Baltis
are a warm-hearted people when once their deeper feelings can
be reached, and when their hearts have not been crushed out of
them by that fatal load-carrying, and I parted from my faithful
followers with sincere regret.
A march or two after passing Skardu, the chief place in
Baltistan, I met the first European on the south side of the
Himalayas. He was not an Englishman, but a Frenchman,
M. Dauvei^ne ; and in his tent I had the first good meal and
talk in English I had had for many a month. A few marches
Digitized by
Google
2IO THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. viii.
further on I met another European. This one at any rate,
I thought, must be ayi Englishman, and I walked up to him
with all the eagerness a traveller has to meet a countryman
of his own after not seeing one for nearly seven months. But
this time it turned out the stranger was a Russian ! He an-
nounced himself as M. Nicolas Notovitch, an adventurer who
had, I subsequently found, made a not very favourable repu-
tation in India. I asked M. Notovitch where he had come
from, and he replied that he had come from Kashmir. He
then asked me where I had come from. I said from
Peking. It much amused me, therefore, when on leaving he
said, in a theatrical way, " We part here, the pioneers of the
East!"
This same M. Notovitch has recently published what he
calls a new " Life of Christ," which he professes to have found
in a monastery in Ladak, after he had parted with me No one,
however, who knows M. Notovitch's reputation, or who has the
slightest knowledge of the subject, will give any reliance what-
ever to this pretentious volume.
On the day after leaving M. Notovitch I crossed my last
pass, the Zoji-la, eleven thousand four hundred feet high. It
was perfectly easy, and then on descending the southern side
we found all the mountain-sides covered with forest The
change from the bare hillsides on the north was very striking
and very pleasant Hitherto, from far away at their rise from
the Yarkand plains, the mountains had been barren and desti-
tute of any trace of forest. Occasionally in some favoured
sheltered spot a dwarfed tree or two might be seen, but as
a whole it was only in the valley bottoms and on cultivated
lands that any trees were met with. Now of a sudden all
was changed. We had reached the southern-facing slopes of
the outward ridge of the Himalayas, and upon these slopes
all the rains of the monsoon are expended, while none is
left to reach the parched hill slopes beyond. Consequent upon
Digitized by
Google
1 88?.] ARRIVAL AT SRINAGAR. 211
this, the mountains on the one side of the water are densely
packed with forest, and on the other are bare sun-baked rocks
only.
We passed rapidly down the beautifully wooded Sind valley,
with Its meadows and pine forests, its rushing torrents and
snow-clad mountain summits, and at last reached the open
valley of Kashmir itself. Some seven or eight miles' march
through this brought us to Srinagar, that most picturesquely
situated but dirtiest of all towns, and then for the first time I
realized how very dirty I myself was, and how rough I had
become. Dressed in a Yarkand sheepskin coat and long
Yarkand boots, and with a round Tam-o'-shanter cap as the
only European article of dress about me, and with a rough
beard, and my face burnt by exposure in the desert and cut and
reddened by the cold on the glaciers, I was addressed by the
people of the place as a Yarkandi. My first care, therefore, was
to go off to one of the native shops which provide all necessaries
for Europeans, and purchase a knickerbocker suit, such as
officers wear out shooting in Kashmir, and a clean shirt, and to
have my hair cut, my beard shaved off, and to get a good wash.
When I had expended nearly two hours upon these preparations
for my plunge into civilization, I went to see Captain Ramsay,
the political agent on duty at Srinagar at the time. It was
very trying, therefore, when Captain Ramsay, almost imme-
diately after shaking hands, said, " Wouldn't you like to have
a wash?" This was the first of the many shocks I had on
returning to civilization.
But there were some pleasant surprises as well as a dis-
agreeable shock like this, and I remember the satisfaction I
felt at receiving a telegram at Srinagar, conveying to me the
congratulations of Sir Frederick Roberts upon my having suc-
cessfully accomplished the journey, and a very kind letter from
General Chapman, then Quartermaster-General in India, who
had himself been to Yarkand and Kashgar, and, knowing how
Digitized by
Google
212 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. viii.
welcome they are to travellers, had thoughtfully sent a box of
cigars to await my arrival.
Only one day was given up for rest in Srinagar, and then
I started on the last stage of my journey, that to Rawal Pindi ;
for I was anxious to accomplish my task in precisely the seven
months which I had said at Peking would be the time neces-
sary for it So I pushed on, and now at the end of a very
long journey I was feeling "fitter" than when I started, and
able to cover the distance rapidly. After arriving at seven
o'clock on the evening of November 2, I had my dinner, lay
down for an hour or two, and then at twelve o'clock at night
started again walking the first march of twelve miles ; then
getting into an " ekka," or native cart, which conveyed me for
three marches down the newly constructed cart-road. At the
end of these three marches I rode another ten miles uphill
towards Murree, and arrived at a dak bungalow at sunset.
Here I rested, and at three o'clock in the morning started
again, marching the ten miles into Murree on foot From there
I took a tonga, and drove rapidly down the hill the last thirty-
nine miles into Rawal Pindi. The change was wonderful I
had thought riding a miserable little native pony luxury in
comparison with the weary marching on foot Then the trund-
ling along at a jog-trot in a native cart on the Kashmir road
had seemed the very essence of all that was comfortable in
travelling. But now I was in a conveyance with a pair of
ponies galloping down the hill, and with what seemed perfect
rest to me I was covering every hour three or four times the
distance I had been able to accomplish on foot, and, still better,
I was freeing myself from the nightmare of the mountains, and,
in place of the continual barrier after barrier of mountain ranges
blocking the way and shutting me in, there was stretched out
before me the wide plains of the Punjab. From the plains of
Turkestan on the one side, I had made my way through the
labyrinth of mountains, over one range after another, past each
Digitized by
Google
i887.] END OF THE JOURNEY. 213
succeeding obstacle, till I had now reached the plains on the
southern side. My whole long journey from Peking was at an
end. My utmost hopes had been fulfilled, and I had reached
that destination which, as I rode out of the gates of Peking,
had seemed so remote and inaccessible.
On April 4 I left Peking, and on November 4 I drove
up to the messhouse of my regiment at Rawal Pindi. Two
days later I reached Simla, and saw Colonel Bell, froni whom
I had parted at Peking, and who, travelling more rapidly than
me, had reached India a month before. To him, therefore,
belongs the honour of being the first European to reach India
from China by land. Poor Liu-san, the Chinese servant, arrived
SIX weeks later with the ponies, which we had been obliged to
send back from the Mustagh Pass round by the Karakoram and
Leh. He was suflTering badly from pleurisy, brought on by
exposure ; but when he was sufficiently recovered he was sent
back to China by sea, and he afterwards accompanied the
persevering American traveller, Mr. Rockhill, to Tibet He
was a Chinaman, and therefore not a perfect animal, but he
understood his business thoroughly, and he did it So for a
journey across the entire breadth of the Chinese Empire I could
scarcely have found a better man. As long as he felt that he
was " running " me, and that it was his business to convey me,
like a bundle of goods, from one side of China to the other, he
worked untiringly. And the success of the journey is in no
small degree due to this single servant, who had not feared to
accompany me throughout
Digitized by
Google
214 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ix.
CHAPTER IX.
THE KANJUTI RAIDS.
<< Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of tliem ?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion ? should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these? and stem
A tide of suffering, rather than forego
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm
Of those whose eyes are only tum'd below.
Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow ? **
Byron.
In the spring of 1889, the exploring fever came strong on me
again, and, seeking the advice of Mr. Ney Elias, a journey
across Tibet, by much the same route as that afterwards so
successfully explored by Captain Bower, was suggested to me.
I had begun to think over details for this and plan out the
journey, when my hopes were utterly shattered by the stern
refusal of my commanding officer to allow me to go, and I
was left in despair to wile away the dreary hot-weather months
in an Indian cantonment, spending hour after hour in looking
out for microscopic atoms of dust on my men's uniforms or
saddlery, and in watching horses being groomed and fed and
watered. But just when I was most despairing, a ray of hope
came. A telegram was put in my hands, and this proved to
be from the Foreign Office at Simla, asking me to undertake
an exploration on the northern frontier of Kashmir. Here
was the very chance I had been longing for. I went straight
up to Simla to see the foreign secretary. Sir Mortimer Durand,
and received instructions regarding my mission.
Digitized by
Google
i8S9] HUNZA OR KANJUTI RAIDERS, 215
In describing my journey from Yarkand to Kashmir in
the last two chapters, I have referred to a tribe of raiders who
inhabit the little state of Hunza (or Kanjut, as it is always
called on the Yarkand side), which is situated to the north
of Kashmir. Deep-set among the mountains, accessible only
by lofty snowy passes or through narrow impracticable defiles,
the little state had bred and harboured a race of men who,
issuing from the mountain fastnesses, had raided incessantly
upon all the countries round. The traders on the road from
Yarkand to India continually suffered from these wild free-
booters ; the peace-loving inhabitants of the Yarkand valleys
were ever subject to their attacks, and compelled to hand them
over black-mail ; the nomadic Kirghiz, scattered defenceless in
their tents over the open valleys of the Pamirs, had to pay their
" tribute," or suffer the consequences of refusal ; the Kashmir
troops at Gilgit dreaded their attacks ; and even the poor Baltis
in distant and inaccessible Askoli shuddered at the thought
of them. No one could get at these wild Hunza raiders, secure
as they were in their impenetrable valleys, but they could strike
at every one round them.
In the autumn of 1888 — the year after I had crossed the
Mustagh Pass — these robbers had made an unusually daring
attack upon a large caravan, and had carried off a number of
Kirghiz from Shahidula, on the Yarkand road. The Kirghiz
had applied to the Chinese for protection against such raids,
but had been refused it, and they thereupon, in the spring
of 1889, made a similar petition to the British authorities. It
was to inquire into and report upon the circumstances of this
raid, and to examine all the country between the trade route
and Hunza, with a view to stopping such raids for the future,
that I was now to be sent by the Government of India. I
was to take a small guard of six Gurkhas with me, and a native
surveyor, and the Kirghiz who had brought the petition in to
Leh was to await my arrival there, and accompany me to
Digitized by
Google
2i6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ix.
Shahidula. Sir Mortimer Durand kept continually begging
me to ask for anything which could possibly assist me, and
showed a sympathy in the enterprise which encouraged me in
carrying it out On the night before I started, he said, " It
is very easy for me, sitting comfortably in my drawing-room
here, to ask you to go and do a thing of this sort ; but you
must not imagine that I do not fully realize all the hardships
and difficulties you will encounter ; so ask me for anything you
like that can possibly help you along."
The hardships and difficulties, I think, he more than realized,
for my experience is that they appear far worse in a drawing-
room than anywhere else; but I was made to feel, at any
rate, that I had his sympathy, and that was ample encourage-
ment for me to do the utmost to justify the confidence that
had been reposed in me. My preparations did not take long,
for we were now in July, and it is only in the summer and
autumn months that it is possible to travel in the mountains
which had now to be explored, and arrangements had accord-
ingly to be made as rapidly as possible. On July 5 I left
Simla, spent a few days at Rawal Pindi collecting camp
equipage, stores, eta, and then, on July 1 1, went to Abbottabad
to inspect the six men of the 5th Gurkhas who had been
selected to go with me. I was taken down to the orderly-room
of the regiment, and there saw the six men drawn up, each
with a little heap of clothing and equipment beside him, and
with a crowd of envious Gurkhas gazing at them, while they
themselves were looking preternaturally solemn, though it was
evident that on the smallest provocation they would go off
into a broad hearty chuckle. Each of them was receiving
a free issue of special warm clothing, a waterproof sheet, a
great-coat, etc. ; they were to have extra pay while away, and
they were to lead, for the next few months, a free wild life, with
the chance of a fight, perhaps, before they got back again ; so
no wonder they were pleased with themselves and envied by
Digitized by
Google
I889-] START FROM MURREE. 217
their comrades. Having found that everything had been satis-
factorily arranged, and that they themselves and all their
equipment were, as far as could be seen, in proper working trim,
I packed them off in ekkas to Kashmir, and they drove away
from the regimental lines with broad grins on their jolly round
faces, hugely delighted with themselves.
Meanwhile, I had to go round by Murree to pick up my
own kit. I had been travelling in the train and in the tonga
by road to Abbottabad all the night, and now, before evening,
I had a forty-mile ride into Murree. But it was a delightful
trip amid the most lovely scenery, as the road passed along
near the crest of a pine-clad ridge, with long vistas over the
plains of the Punjab on the one side, and here and there on
the other side glimpses through the beautiful deodars of the
snowy ranges of Kashmir, and once of the distant Nanga Parbat
— the Naked Mountain — standing out over twenty-six thousand
feet above sea-level, a true monarch of the mountains.
One day I spent in Murree, and then finally started on my
journey, catching up my little Gurkhas on the following day
at the then terminus of the cart-road, five marches from Murree.
It was necessary to push my party along as rapidly as possible,
so I mounted the Gurkhas on ponies and made them do
double marches. A Gurkha is not at home on the back of
a pony. He is made for climbing hills, and not for riding.
And these little men were not at all happy at first, but they,
at any rate, found it better than walking twenty-five miles
a day in the hothouse atmosphere of the Jhelum valley in July.
While they marched up this valley and then crossed the
Wular Lake in boats to the entrance of the Sind valley, down
which I had come two years before on my way from Peking,
I went to see the British Resident, Colonel Parry Nisbet, from
whom, on this as on many another occasion, I received not
only that help which I might expect officially, but also that
thoughtful consideration which was more like what a father
Digitized by
Google
2i8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ix.
gives his son than what an official gives his subordinate. Then
I once more rejoined my escort, and Shahzad Mir, a sowar of
the nth Bengal Lancers, who was to accompany me as orderly
and surveyor, when surveying was to be done, having also
now caught us up, our party was complete. And no one
could have wished for a better little party — the six sturdy
little Gurkhas, grim and stern when any business had to be
done, but round the camp fire and off duty cheery and jolly,
for ever chaffing one another and roaring with laughter ; and
Shahzad Mir, a different man altogether, but equally good,
not jovial like a Gurkha, but a Pathan, grave and serious, and
with his mind thoroughly set on the business in hand and
determined to do it well. I used to talk to the men on the
march, and tell them that I had been through the mountains
before and knew that there was a rough time before us. The
jolly Gurkhas laughed and said, "All right, sahib, we don't
mind." If they were to have a rough time, they would get
through it somehow or other when the time came; in the
meanwhile they meant to enjoy themselves thoroughly. The
Pathan knit his brows and prepared himself there and then
for the struggle if there was to be one, and told me that he
only wanted a chance of making a name for himself, and if
he could do well on this occasion perhaps I should be able
to get him promotion. My story will show how faithfully
these men served me, and I was delighted with my first real
experience of the native troops of India.
Crossing the Zoji-la, the last of the passes on my way
from Peking, we left behind us all the wooded beauties of
Kashmir, its shady pine forest and bright flowery meadows,
and entered that desolate region of barren mountains and
unshaded valleys, where the sun beat down upon the unprotected
rocks and produced a degree of heat which would never have
been expected at altitudes of nine thousand feet and over,
and which made still more trying the cold blasts which, when
Digitized by
Google
THE SIND VALLEY, KASHMIR.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
J 8890 BUDDHIST MONASTERIES, 219
the sun had set, came down from the snow above. We were
entering Ladak, an offshoot of Tibet, and the only redeeming
feature in the country was the picturesqueness of its monasteries,
perched high upon every prominent rock. As regards its
natural scenery, it would be difficult to find any more dreary-
looking country than Ladak. Its mountains, though lofty,
are not grand or rugged, but resemble a monotonous succession
of gigantic cinder-heaps. But the Buddhist monasteries, the
fluttering prayer-flags, the chortens, and the many other signs
of a religion almost totally unrepresented in India, gave the
country a charm which just relieved it from utter condemnation.
These signs of Buddhist life have many times before been
described, so I need only refer here to the long rows of what
appeared to be immense graves, overlaid with hundreds of
slabs, each engraved with the formula, " Om mane padme hum "
("Oh! the jewel of the lotus"), the talismanic prayer which
the devotees of this religion believe will produce more and more
beneficent results the oftener it is repeated ; the many-coloured
flags fluttering in the breeze inscribed with the same magic
formula, and breathing with each new flutter one fresh prayer
to heaven; the dirty, yellow- clad monks, with their shaven
heads, their string of beads round their necks, and their prayer-
wheels reeling off a prayer with each successive revolution. All
these are well-known characteristics of Buddhist life, and require
only a passing reference here. I admired their picturesqueness
and wondered at the quaintness of such superstitions, but had
no time to study in detail the particular phase the Buddhist
religion has taken in this far-away corner of Tibet.
We travelled rapidly through the country, and on July 31
reached its principal place, Leh. In twenty days our party
had travelled just over four hundred miles, and crossed one
pass of eleven thousand and three of thirteen thousand feet-
all, however, very easy. On entering Leh I was met by old
Shukar Ali, the only Ladaki who had come across the Mustagh
Digitized by
Google
220 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. ix.
Pass. Hearing of my return to these parts, he had come to
offer his services, and I gladly accepted them, for a more
willing, cheery servant I never had. From pony-man he was
now promoted to cook. He had no experience of cooking, and
these rough hill-men are not the persons one would ordinarily
choose for cooks ; but, knowing the hardships my men would
have to go through, I was determined not to have a man from
the plains of India, who might become ill or give in just when
his services were most needed. Only men accustomed to
"roughing" it could come with me now, and no one could
stand hard work better than Shukar Ali. So, although I could
not look forward to any very recherche dinners while he was
at the head of the cooking department, I knew that I should
always be sure of a dinner of some sort, and with Shukar Ali
as one of the party there would always be a volunteer for hard
work when anything specially trying had to be done.
At Leh I was the guest of Captain Ramsay, the British
Joint Commissioner, and the same officer whom I mentioned
as being Political Agent at Srinagar when I arrived there from
Peking.* He had been asked to have ponies ready for me,
and to have other necessary arrangements made for my
onward journey, and he had done everything so thoroughly
that I had little else to do but take over charge. A matter
which gave us, however, considerable anxiety was in regard
to an additional escort of twenty-five Kashmir Sepoys, who
were to be taken on as far as Shahidula. The garrison of Leh
was paraded, but it only numbered seventy-nine all told,
and was composed of miserable, decrepit old men, thin and
half-starved, who looked at me imploringly as I went down
the ranks — each one seeming to beseech me not to take him
with me, while a look of horror came over each one that I
selected. It is impossible to conceive a greater difference
than there was between the look and the spirit of the Gurkhas
• Page 211.
Digitized by
Google
1889.] REINFORCEMENTS, 221
of the regular Indian Army I had seen at Abbottabad and
these woe-begone troops of the Kashmir army. The one,
well looked after, well paid, well equipped, and well fed, were
ready to go anywhere, and looked upon a few months' hard
work as a welcome change from the monotony of barrack life ;
the other, poorly fed, badly equipped, and under-paid, dreaded
hard work, because they knew they were not physically fit
to undergo it, and because they could feel no assurance that
sacrifices on their part would be recognized or rewarded. This
was the state of the Kashmir army in 1889. How different
it is now that it has been re-organized under the supervision of
British officers is shown by their deeds in Hunza and Chitral
With great difficulty, then. Captain Ramsay and I selected
seventeen men who, with a proper equipment of additional
warm clothing and with extra rations, we thought might just
be able to pull through the work required of them. They
seemed to shrink together as they were told they would have
to march two hundred and forty miles and cross four high
passes to reach Shahidula ; but they really came of a soldier
race — ^the Dogras — and as soon as they saw that they were
to be properly cared for, they plucked up courage, and they
afterwards did what was required of them well and without
ever giving me the slightest trouble.
Besides Kashmir soldiers, I made at Leh an addition to my
party of two Baltis, with a portable raft of goatskins for
crossing unfordable rivers. These goatskin rafts are much
used in Baltistan. From sixteen to twenty or more goatskins
are inflated and lashed to a framework of wood, which can then
be punted or paddled across the river. In the rafts ordinarily
in use the framework is a fixture, but in the one which we were
to take, the poles for it were of course taken separately and the
skins carried flat
Captain Ramsay and I, while these preparations were
going on, discussed a plan of operations. Musa, the Kirghiz
Digitized by
Google
222 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ix.
who had brought the petition to the British authorities, was
still in Leh. From him we learnt the details of the Kanjuti
raid in the previous year, and gained some information regarding
the road which the raiders had followed from Hunza. This
was one of the roads which I wished to explore, and, as it lay
through a totally unknown country, it was necessary to acquire
all possible information about it before going there. My
chief anxiety was regarding transport In a country which
was a labyrinth of mountains without any roads, coolies would
obviously be the best transport to employ. Men could go
where a four-footed animal could not; and, if I employed
coolies, I could follow a route which would be out of the
question if I employed ponies or mules. But there was one
fatal objection to the employment of coolies, and that was
that if the men had to carry provisions for themselves for any
length of time, they would not be able to carry any load
besides. We should be several weeks away rom any inhabited
spot — in fact, we were afterwards travelling for fifty-seven days
without seeing a single inhabitant — and as each man requires
about two pounds of food each day, and cannot carry a greater
load than sixty pounds over these rough mountains, it is
obvious that if he had to travel thirty days away from the
base of supplies, he would only be able to carry sufficient 'food
for himself and nothing for anybody else, and that if he had
to riiarch any longer than thirty days he would starve. So
coolies, though the best means of transport for crossing bad
places, could not be employed.
The same objection, in a modified form, applied to the use
of ponies. Ponies eat four pounds a day, and carry one hundred
and sixty pounds. They could, therefore, go a little further
than coolies ; but even ponies, if the expedition were a month
away from the base, would only be able to carry forty pounds
of baggage each in addition to grain supplies for themselves.
For anything over a month they would be useless. I then
Digitized by
Google
'^^] TRANSPORT AND SUPPLIES. 223
thought of employing donkeys. These animals are supposed
to be able to pick up a living anywhere, and a handful or two
of grain a day for each would probably be sufficient, but a
very grave objection to using them was their small size. We
should constantly be crossing rivers, and little donkeys would
be swept away at once.
I was planning out a system of dep6ts and combined
employment of ponies, donkeys, and men, when Musa, the
Kirghiz, relieved my mind by suggesting camels. He said
a certain number could be procured at Shahidula, and that
they could be taken along a great part of the route to Hunza.
This at once solved the difficulty, for camels can pick up
a certain amount of grazing along the mountain-sides, so that
they only need — or, at any rate, are only given — two pounds
of grain a day, while they carry loads of from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred pounds. Their size, too, would be of
great advantage in crossing deep rivers. I had already
employed camels on my way from Yarkand to the Mustagh
Pass in 1887, and had seen then how well these hill camels
can work over really difficult ground, so I at once sent off
a messenger to Shahidula to have as many as possible collected
for me. They would not be able to go the whole way, but
they could work along the valley bottoms and easier passes ;
then we would have a few ponies to carry us over the more
difficult passes, and two or three men for the worst of all.
The transport question having been decided, the next
matter which had to be attended to was supplies. Though
I have spoken of Shahidula as a base, it was not a base
in the ordinary acceptance of the term. It lies over twelve
thousand feet above the sea ; nothing whatever is grown there ;
and there is not a single permanently inhabited house in the
place. There was an old fort there, but Shahidula was really
only the head-quarters of nomadic Kirghiz, and a convenient
halting-place for caravans; and all supplies of grain had to
Digitized by
Google
224 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ix.
be brought from the villages of Turkestan, six days' inarch
across a pass seventeen thousand feet high. This was the only
" base " for the exploration of a mountainous region where for
two months we should not meet with inhabitants. There were
not at this time sufficient supplies for our party in Shahidula,
and the question was how to get them there. If I sent into
the villages of Turkestan for them, the Chinese might object
to this, for these villages were under Chinese authority, and
the Chinese have been known to be obstructive. On the other
hand, to carry up supplies from Leh would have been a serious
undertaking. The furthest village in the Ladak district is
one hundred and eighty miles from Shahidula, and separated
from it by three passes averaging over eighteen thousand feet
in height. As, therefore, the Chinese had been very civil to me
on my former journey, I trusted to their being so again, and
sent on a man to procure supplies from the Turkestan villages
to bring to Shahidula.
All these preparations having been made, I said good-bye
to Captain Ramsay, and on August 8 again set out Directly
behind Leh a high pass, the Khardung, seventeen thousand
six hundred feet above the sea, has to be crossed, and as the
ascent to it from Leh is very abrupt, I experienced a bout
of mountain sickness, which depressed me greatly for the time.
When the ascent to high altitudes is gradual, one becomes
accustomed to the changed condition of the atmosphere ; but
when the ascent to such a height as seventeen thousand feet
is abrupt (as in this case) most men seem to feel the change,
and a racking headache and feeling of sickness and depression
soon lets the traveller know that mountain sickness has
come over him. On this occasion I became terribly depressed.
I thought that if I was so bad as this at the very start, how
should I fare when there were three still higher passes to cross
before even Shahidula, the starting-point of my real journey,
could be reached, and when there were ten others besides to
Digitized by
Google
1889.] THE DEPSANG PLAINS. 225
cross before I should find myself in Kashmir again ? Fortunately,
however, mountain sickness wears off as one becomes accustomed
to high altitudes, and I was never troubled with it again.
The journey to Shahidula it is unnecessary to describe in
detail, for it is now well known. We ascended the picturesque
Nubra valley, with its orchards of apricot trees and Buddhist
monuments, and then crossed the Saser Pass, seventeen thou-
sand eight hundred feet — a pass which, on account of the
glacier at its summit, is often very dangerous, but which at
this season presented no difficulty whatever. The mountains
about here and at the head of the Nubra are very grand
and bold, and rise to peaks of twenty-three thousand and
twenty-four thousand feet in height, with fine glaciers rolling
down their sides ; but beyond the Saser Pass we entered the
most utterly desolate country that exists on the face of the
globe. The Depsang Plains are more than seventeen thousand
feet above sea-level, and are of gravel, as bare as a gravel-
walk to a suburban villa. Away behind us the snowy peaks
of Saser and Nubra appeared above the horizon like the sails
of some huge ships ; but before us was nothing but gravel
plains and great gravel mounds, terribly desolate and depress-
ing.. Across these plains blew blinding squalls of snow, and
at night, though it was now the middle of summer, there
were several degrees of frost Crossing the Depsang Plains^
we ascended a shallow valley covered with the skeletons
of ponies, which every traveller who passes through it in-
stinctively names the Valley of the Shadow of Death, to the
Karakoram Pass, eighteen thousand eight hundred and fifty
feet. It might have been supposed that at such height the
snow would have been lying thick ; but there was not a speck
of snow either on it or on the mountain summits by it, which
are well over nineteen thousand feet in height Karakoram
(Black Gravel) is, as I noted above, the very name for this
pass and range ; but it is strange that these mountains, at
Q
Digitized by
Google
226 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. ix.
so great an altitude above sea-level, and forming, as they do,
the watershed between India and Turkestan, should have no
signs of snow upon them. The only reason I can think of
to account for it is that behind this range and between it
and the ocean, from which the rain comes, are other far more
lofty mountains which intercept the greater part of the
moisture; and as there are no deep trough-like valleys in
which the little snow that does fall would collect and be
preserved in the form of glaciers, but only wide shallow valleys
where the snow would lie where it fell in a thin coating over
the surface of the mountain, and soon melt under the rays of the
sun, it happens that these mountains, whose summits are as
high as Snowdon placed on the top of Mont Blanc, are in the
summer months as free from snow as our little hills in England.
Descending the northern side of the Karakoram Pass, we
passed the spot where poor Dalgleish had been murdered by
an Afghan in the previous year, and saw the memorial tablet
which had just been placed there by Mr. Dauvergne, Major
Cumberland, and Captain Bower. No more dreary spot could
be imagined ; and here, on the dividing-line between India
and Central Asia, in the very core of these lofty mountain
ranges, hundreds of miles away from his nearest fellow-
country men, had fallen the one solitary Englishman who had
tried to make his home in Central Asia. It was sad to think
of such a life being so sacrificed ; and that after he had
succeeded, as he had done, in gaining the affections and good-
will of the people of the country in which he had settled, he
should have been treacherously murdered in a fit of fanaticism
or temper by one who was a stranger like himself.
From the Karakoram Pass we traversed a region only less
desolate than that we had passed over on the southern side,
and then, after crossing the Suget Pass, seventeen thousand
six hundred feet high, we descended rapidly to Shahidula,
which we reached on August 21, having in the last six
Digitized by
Google
1889.] A KANJUTI RAID, 227
days travelled one hundred and seventy miles of country
in which no supplies, very little grass, and only roots for fuel
could be obtained, and in those six days crossed, besides a
minor pass of fifteen thousand feet, three others averagfing
seventeen thousand six hundred feet above sea-level. In just
six weeks from the time of leaving the cantonment of Abbot-
tabab my party was six hundred and forty miles in the heart
of the mountains.
At Shahidula we were met by a deputation of Kirghiz,
headed by Turdi Kol, the chief man, a quiet, careworn old
gentleman, who, as he was himself present at the time of
the raid, could give me a full and accurate account of it
What had happened was this. In the autumn of the previous
year, a party of eighty-seven men of Hunza (Kanjutis),
armed some with matchlocks, some with swords, and some
with picks only, had come from the Shimshal Pass, one
hundred and ninety miles distant, and had suddenly appeared
near Shahidula. They had attacked a caravan and carried
off a quantity of goods, and had captured, to take away as
slaves, some stray Kirghiz, whom they had found about the
valley tending their flocks and herds. They took some of
these men, and on pain of death made them show where
Turdi Kol, their chief, was living, and compelled them to go
up to the tent and call to him to come out, while the Kanjutis
lay hidden, ready to capture him directly he appeared But
Turdi Kol told me he suspected something from the manner
in which he was called, and from the fact that his men did
not usually stand outside and call him, but came in and
asked him. So he took care to lay hold of his rifle, an
English one, and, pushing aside the door of the tent, caught
sight of the Kanjutis. He fired at them and they ran away ;
but they took with them twenty-one Kirghiz, men and women,
and these were only subsequently released on the payment
of eighty rupees for each.
Digitized by
Google
228 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. ix.
Turdi Kol and all the Kirghiz implored me, as the repre-
sentative of the British Government, to make some arrange-
ments for stopping these cruel raids. They said the Chinese
would do nothing for them, and their only hope now was
in the British. I was able to tell them that the Government
of India was sending Captain (now Colonel) Durand to Hunza
to see the chief of that country, and, amongst other things,
to try to come to some understanding with him in regard to
this raiding, and that for the protection of the trade route
during the present year I was going to leave some Kashmir
sepoys at Shahidula. But I also desired to explore the route
from Shahidula by which the raids were committed, and
I would ask, therefore, that guides should be furnished me
to enable me to effect this. Turdi Kol himself at once
volunteered to accompany me, and as he had been to Hunza
before, and knew the road, his assistance was likely to prove
most valuable.
These Khirghiz were not an attractive set of men. They
were timid, irresolute, and shifty. It is true that their mode
of life renders them rather liable to attack, for they live by
their flocks and herds, and have to scatter themselves over
the valleys wherever pasture for their animals can be found.
They are, therefore, necessarily exposed to attacks from a
compact body of raiders. But, on the other hand, these raiders
had to come nearly two hundred miles through a difficult
mountainous country; and the Kirghiz, if they were worth
an)^hing at all, ought to have been able, in the defiles and
passes of their country, to give the Kanjutis some sort of
punishment, or to effect some little retaliation that might at
any rate have checked the audacity of the raiders. But except
Turdi Kol, who really had some pluck and nerve, they were
a flabby lot, who, like parasites, preferred to hang on to some
greater power and get protection from it rather than make
any attempt at defence themselves. There were at the time
Digitized by
Google
18890 THE KIRGHIZ, 229
of my visit about forty families in Shahidula and its neigh-
bourhood, living, like all Kirghiz, in the round felt-covered
tents, called akois. They were well dressed in long loose
robes and turbans, or round fur caps. They appeared to be
in more flourishing circumstances than the inhabitants of
Ladak, and they make considerable profits from hiring out
their camels, yaks, and ponies, and selling their sheep and
goats to the traders passing through Shahidula on the caravan
route from Yarkand to Leh. About twenty or thirty of them
possessed matchlocks of a primitive pattern ; the remainder
were unarmed. All of them were in the most abject terror
of the Kanjutis, and assured me that the first man who entered
Hunza territory would be killed without a doubt. They
proclaimed this loudly in a large gathering which I had
called together, and when they said it I turned round and
said in chaff to the naik (corporal) of the Gurkhas, "All
right ; you shall go first." The little man was quite delighted,
and beamed with satisfaction at the prospect Little touches
like this show up in a flash the various characteristics of
different races. Asiatics interpret these signs even more
quickly than Europeans, and the six little Gurkhas produced
by this and similar actions a marked impression upon the
people wherever they went The Kirghiz soon discovered
the difference between the Gurkhas and themselves, and the
feeling of terror and despondency which had hung over them
when we first arrived soon gave place to one of confidence
and security.
Digitized by
Google
230 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
CHAPTER X.
AMONG THE GLACIERS.
" To reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice."
Measure for Measure.
There was no need to hurry my departure from Shahidula,
for it was necessary to wait till the Yarkand River, down the
valley of which we should have to march for several days,
should have fallen, as the summer floods from the melting
of the snows decreased. The region which was now to be
explored was entirely uninhabited, and without roads, tracks,
bridges, or any of the usual means of communication. I' had
had a sample of it on my journey across the Mustagh Pass,
and I knew that we should have to work along the beds
of rivers and bottoms of deep, precipitous-sided valleys, and
clamber over ranges by any sort of opening which could be
dignified by the name of a pass. The first sixty-five miles
had been explored by Hay ward, and I had myself, in 1887,
traversed another ninety miles, but otherwise the region from
Shahidula to the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir and Hunza was
perfectly unknown ; and how the rivers and ranges ran, and
where this Shimshal Pass was situated by which the Kanjuti
raiders issued from Hunza, were all matters for conjecture.
There were two things which I desired especially to do.
I wished to discover this Shimshal Pass, and see how the
Digitized by
Google
1889.] PREPARATIONS FOR EXPLORATION, 231
raiders came, and I wished on my way there to satisfy my
curiosity as to the existence of a mysterious pass called the
Saltoro Pass, which my old guide Wali had pointed out to
me in the distance on our way to the Mustagh. I felt sure
that this could only be a second Mustagh Pass ; but still,
such as it was, I wanted to see it And after I had had a
look at both these passes, it was my intention to make my
way up on the edge of the Pamir plateau, and afterwards work
my way homeward by one or other of the passes leading from
these down through Hunza to Gilgit Captain Durand, in
the meanwhile, during the visit he had already planned to
make to Hunza, was to arrange with the ruler of that country
for my safe conduct through it.
The supplies which had been sent for from Turkestan
arrived by the end of August The Chinese had raised no
objection to their being forwarded, and indeed had sent me
a polite message in return for the one I had sent them. We
had now for consumption on the journey 3200 lbs. of grain
for the ponies, 1440 lbs. of flour for the men, 160 lbs. of rice,
48 lbs. of ghi (clarified butter), besides a miscellaneous supply
of tea, sugar, etc., and a flock of seven sheep and six goats.
We took also some tools for road-making, and of course a
full supply of shoes and nails for the ponies.
For the carriage of this and of the men's baggage I had
eighteen ponies and thirteen camels; but as these supplies
were only sufficient for about a month and a half, I had to
arrange for sending back the camels to fetch a further instal-
ment, which was to be brought from the Turkestan villages
and meet me at a certain junction of rivers (I could only
hope that the two particular rivers did join, for of that point I
had no certain information) at the conclusion of my exploration
of the Shimshal and Saltoro Passes. This exploration would
of course take some time, and meanwhile the camels would be
able to make their journey to Shahidula and back. I knew
Digitized by
Google
232 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
we were running a risk in starting without our supplies
complete, but the exploration of such a region could not be
accomplished without running risks of some sort Camels in
sufficient numbers could not be obtained, and it was therefore
necessary to make the most of those that were available, and
trust to the second instalment of supplies reaching us as
arranged for.
The ponies and their equipment having been thoroughly
looked to, the pack-saddles repaired, and the loads properly
made up, we left Shahidula on September 3, leaving behind
the seventeen Kashmir sepoys, who were to stay for a month
at Shahidula to protect the trade route, and then return to Leh.
The party now consisted of six Gurkhas (guard) ; one orderly
surveyor; one interpreter (an Argoon of Leh); one cook (a
Ladaki) ; two Balti raft-men ; five Kirghiz. Total, sixteen men,
with nineteen ponies (including one riding-pony for myselO
and thirteen camels. The Kirghiz all rode ponies in addition.
We struck off westward from Shahidula, following the route
which Hayward had taken on his exploration of the upper course
of the Yarkand River. We followed the valley of a river on
which were several patches of fine grazing, and till the
previous year had been well inhabited, but was now deserted on
account of Kanjuti raids. This valley is known by the name
of Khal Chuskun. Chuskun in Turki means "resting-place,"
and Khal is the name of a holy man from Bokhara who is said
to have rested here many years ago. The mountains bounding
the north of this valley are very bold and rugged, with fine
upstanding peaks and glaciers; but the range to the south,
which Hayward calls the Aktagh Range, was somewhat tame
in character, with round mild summits and no glaciers. The
Sokh-bulak is an easy pass, and from its summit to the east
could be seen the snowy range of the eastern Kuenlun
Mountains, while to the west appeared a rocky mass of
mountains culminating in three fine snowy peaks which
Digitized by
Google
1889.] THE YARKAND RIVER. 233
Hayward mistook as belonging to the main Mustagh Range,
but which, in fact, in no way approach to the height and mag-
nificence of these mountains, and really belong to the Aghil
Range, which is separated from the Mustagh Mountains by the
valley of the Oprang Riven
The wind was blowing with such violence on the summit
of the pass that I found it impossible, after trying for three-
quarters of an hour, to obtain the height by boiling-point of
the thermometer. It has, however, been fixed by Hayward
at seventeen thousand and ninety-two feet Descending from
the pass through a narrow rocky gorge, towards evening we
reached the valley of the Yarkand River, and halted at an
open strip of jungle known as Kirghiz JangaL The valley is
here a mile or more broad ; the bottom is mostly covered with
pebbles, with the stream running in many channels over it.
The mountain-sides are steep, rocky precipices, and no grass
or wood is seen, except at a few spots along the bed of the
river.
On September 5 we made a short march of eleven
miles to Kulanuldi, a camping-ground called by this name on
account of a kulan, or wild ass, having once been found dead
there. The weather at this time was delightful, very clear and
right, neither too hot nor too cold — ^just perfection for travel-
ling. The route, too, was easy and level, leading down the
broad pebbly bed of the Yarkand River. The snowy peaks
of the Kuenlun Mountains rose up to a height of twenty-one
thousand feet to the north, but the real summit of the Aghil
Range to the south could only be seen occasionally in peeps
up narrow ravines. Far down the valley of the Yarkand River
to the westward could be seen a very prominent knot of peaks,
the height of which was approximately fixed by Hayward at
twenty-three thousand feet
On the following day we made an early start in order to
make up for our short march the day before and advanced
Digitized by
Google
234 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
twenty-six miles, passing on the way the camping-grounds of
Chiraghsaldi, where the route from Yarkand, which I followed
in 1887, joins in, and which is the furthest point reached by
Hajnvard. From this point the valley narrowed considerably,
and as the stream runs at places between enormously high
cliffs, it is necessary to be constantly crossing and recrossing
the river, which gets deeper and deeper as streams from
either side add to its volume, till at last it becomes too deep
to be forded by laden ponies, and we were brought to a
standstill at the same gorge where I was delayed two years
ago. The river at this point was up to the ponies' backs,
and flowing with a strong rapid current over a rocky bottom,
so that it was out of the question to take our baggage over on
ponies; and we had to halt for the night (September 7) and
wait till the morning, when the river is less deep than during
the afternoon, as its volume is then increased owing to the
sun melting the snows.
On this march we passed some ruins on a grassy plain
called Karash-tarim {i,e. the cultivated lands of Karash, a man
who b said to have lived here some eighty years ago). There
were remains of half a dozen huts and some smelting furnaces,
and there were also signs of furrows where land had been
cultivated. This strip of grass and jungle was over half a mile
long and six hundred yards broad, and doubtless in former
times was a flourishing spot There were evident signs, too,
of the existence of minerals, copper and iron, and possibly
even gold in small quantities may be found, for quartz and
pieces of iron ore were abundant ; while there are many tradi-
tions of the presence of minerals in these mountains, and the
name of the country, Raskam, a corruption of Rastkan (a real
mine), clearly shows that minerals may be expected.
Lower down we passed a considerable stream called the
Bazar Darra, up which a route leads to Pakhpulu. The size of
the stream, twenty-five yards broad by one and a half foot deep,
Digitized by
Google
1889.] THE KUENLUN MOUNTAINS, 235
shows that the main range of the Kuenlun Mountains must
recede considerably from here. I was informed by Turdi Kol
that, after ascending the Bazar Darra River, and crossing a
pass (the Kokalang), you do not enter the basin of the Tisnaf
River, as you would in the case of the Yangi and Chiraghsaldi
passes further east, but you descend into the valley of a river
called the Kulanargu, which joins the Yarkand River in its
lower course somewhere near Pil ; and you have to cross
another pass, the Takhta-kuran, before you enter the valley of
the Tisnaf River ; so that it is evident that a little to the west
of the Chiraghsaldi Pass the Kuenlun Range must split up,
the two branches being separated by the Kulanargu River.
The lower part of this river is called Chukshu, and is inhabited
by Turkis, who are under Chinese jurisdiction, though they,
like the Kirghiz, were refused protection from Kanjuti raids,
and were told by the Chinese authorities that they lived outside
the frontier passes, and must therefore expect no assistance.
The great height of these mountains was deeply impressed
upon me on this day's march. Tired of marching monotonously
along the bottom of the valley, cooped in by the mountains all
round, I determined to climb a projecting hill, from which it
seemed a view might be obtained of the higher portions of the
ranges which were shutting us in. For some hours I toiled up
a shingle slope, at each step sliding back, in the moving stone
shoot, almost as much as I ascended, and when at last I reached
the summit of the hill, I found it but the extremity of a spur
which stretched back higher and higher to the range behind.
My caravan below looked like specks in the valley bottom, but
the snowy peaks above were still as distant as ever. I saw
little more of the great main ranges than could be seen from
the valley bottom, and, beginning to realize something of what
these mountain heights truly are, I descended the opposite side
of the hill and rejoined my party just as they were brought to
a standstill in the gorge I have mentioned above. The river
Digitized by
Google
236 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
was dashing along at a furious rate over huge rocks and
boulders, and was quite impassable for the ponies, so we were
compelled to halt for the night; and the next morning,
selecting a place where the river-bottom was least rugged, we
crossed the river on camels, halting a few miles on the other
side of the gorge at a pleasant little camping-ground called
Karul, at the junction of the Surakwat stream. Here there
was plenty of thick green grass and shrubs quite twenty feet
high ; so we remained the following day also, that the ponies
might have a good feed of grass such as they were not likely
to see for a long time to come.
Turdi Kol took me a few miles lower down the river and
showed me two other equally good camping-grounds, and he
says that there is considerably more pasture in the lower part
of this valley than in that of the Karakash River, where Shahi-
dula is situated, and that in the old days the valley was popu-
lated and cultivated, and merchants went to and fro by the
Mustagh Pass to Baltistan. Kanjuti raids, however, put a stop
to this, and a story is told of a great raid which took place
at this gorge. The Kanjutis lay hid on the cliffs overhanging
the river, and as a man called Khoja Mohammed was passing
through with his family and a large party, they fired down on
them, and afterwards attacked them with the sword, killing all
the men, and taking the women and children captive. Since
that time this gorge has always been known by the name of
Khoja Mohammed.
We now had to leave the valley of the Yarkand River and
cross the Aghil Range into the valley of the Oprang River. I
took the camels on, one day's march further, to the foot of the
Aghil Pass, and then sent them back to Shahidula to bring on
the second instalment of supplies, which I had arranged that
Turdi Kol should bring to meet me at Chong Jangal, near the
junction of the Oprang with the Yarkand River, after the
exploration of the Saltoro and Shimshal Passes. The ascent
Digitized by
Google
1889.] IN SEARCH OF THE SALTORO PASS. 237
of the Surakwat stream towards the Aghil Pass is in parts very
difficult, as the valley narrows to a gorge, and at two places we
had to spend some hours in building up a staircase to enable
the ponies to get round steep rocky cliffs. The numerous
boulders, too, with which the valley bottom is strewn, made it
very trying work for the ponies ; but we eventually emerged
on to a small plain, at the further end of which the main
summits of the Aghil Range rise up like a wall in front of one
rugged and uncompromising. Here we passed the same rock
behind which, in 1887, I had spent the night lying in the open,
as I had always been obliged to do during my passage of these
mountains, for fear of attack from Kanjutis, should I make my
presence known by setting up a tent. Retracing my former
footsteps on September 11, we crossed the remarkable de-
pression in the range which is known as the Aghil Pass.
So far we had been travelling over known ground, though
I was the only European who had been over this pass before ;
but now there was some new exploration to be done. I have
before described the wonderful view that is to be obtained from
the summit of the Aghil Pass — snowy peaks, the grim wall of
mountains, and the glaciers, like some huge dragons, creeping
down the valley bottoms. Away to the eastward, up a glacier
which stretched across the valley of the Oprang River at our
feet, Wall the guide had told me there was a way to Baltistan
by a pass called the Saltoro. No one, apparently, had crossed
this pass for many years, and it was more than likely that it
would prove just as difficult as the Mustagh Pass had been ;
but before going on to the Shimshal I thought I might well
employ a week or ten days in seeing what it was really like.
We descended to the valley of the Oprang River, and camped
at a spot where some little grass could be obtained, and here
I left my Gurkha escort with the heavy baggage and went on
with Shahzad Mir, my orderly, Shukar Ali, and a Balti. We
took five ponies and ten days' supplies, including fuel, and
Digitized by
Google
238 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
I took a pony to ride myself whenever it was possible to
do so.
On September 12 we made our start. The first march
was easy enough, leading up the broad pebbly bed of the
Oprang River. Up one of the gorges to the south we caught a
magnificent view of* the great peak K2, twenty-eight thousand
two hundred and seventy-eight feet high, and we halted for
the night at a spot from which a view both of K.2 and of the
Gusherbrum peaks, four of which are over twenty-six thousand
feet, were visible. On the following day our difficulties really
began. The first was the great glacier which we had seen
from the Aghil Pass ; it protruded right across the valley of
the Oprang River, nearly touching the cliffs on the right bank ;
but fortunately the river had kept a way for itself, by continu-
ally washing away the ice at the end of the glacier, and so by
taking our ponies through the water, which was filled with
blocks of ice, we were able to get round the end of the glacier,
a great wall of ice of one hundred and fifty to two hundred
feet high. This glacier runs down from the Gusherbrum
Mountains, and is about one and a half mile broad at the end ;
the central portion is a mass of pure ice-peaks, and the view
looking up it is very fine, with the sea of ice beneath, and the
Gusherbrum in the distance towering up to a height of over
twenty-six thousand feet
The passage round the end of the glacier was not unattended
with danger, for the stream was swift and strong ; and on my
own pony I had to reconnoitre very carefully for points where
it was shallow enough to cross, while there was also some fear
of fragments from the great ice-wall falling down on the top
of us when we were passing along close under the cliffs of ice
which formed the end of the glacier. After getting round this
obstacle, we entered a gravel plain some three-quarters of a
mile broad, and were then encountered by another glacier
running across the valley of the Oprang River. This proved
Digitized by
Google
1889.] AMONG THE GLACIERS. 239
to be the glacier we should have to ascend in order to reach
the Saltoro Pass, while the Oprang River could be seen to
flow down from another glacier to the south ; and still another
appeared in view, coming in a south-east direction, and rising
apparently not very far from the Karakoram Pass. We were
therefore now in an ice-bound region, with glaciers in front of
us, glaciers behind us, and glaciers all round us. Heavy snow-
clouds, too, were unfortunately collecting to increase our
difficulties, and I felt that we should have a hard task to reach
the pass.
On first looking at one of these glaciers, it would appear
impossible to take the ponies up them ; but the sides are
always covered with moraine, and my experience in the ex-
ploration of the Mustagh Pass in 1887 showed that, by carefully
reconnoitring ahead, it was generally possible to take the ponies
for a considerable distance, at least, up such glaciers. We,
therefore, now ascended the left side of the glacier, and halted
for the night at a point from which a full view of the pass at
the upper end of the glacier was obtained. The pass, indeed
seemed quite close, but distances in the clear atmosphere of
these high mountains are very deceptive ; and though my
orderly, inexperienced in mountaineering, on first seeing the
pass, was delighted to think that we should reach its summit
on the following day, we did not actually approach it for
three days yet to come, and our adventures on the way may
perhaps be best described by extracts from my journal written
day by day on the spot.
September 14. — A very hard, trying, and unsatisfactory
day. I started off this morning full of zeal, ready to go any-
where and do anything, but finished up utterly tired out and
careless of what might happen. These glaciers are terribly
hard going, and after working the whole day we are only as
far as where I originally hoped to be last evening, and the pass
is as far off as ever. I started off early this morning before
Digitized by
Google
240 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
the camp was struck, and climbed the mountain range on the
left bank of the valley to a gap, from which I hoped to get a
view of what might be on the other side. But after a stiff
climb of nearly two thousand feet, I was only rewarded by
seeing the great glacier which flows down from the Gusherbrum
and another ridge on the opposite side. Snow was falling, and
the view which I had expected to get was hidden by the clouds.
These snow-clouds are remarkable for their soft, fleece-like
intangibility. They are formed of very fine powder-like snow,
and they softly obliterate a mountain peak while the change
is scarcely perceptible. I have seen a peak standing out sharp
and distinct before me, and then watched it slowly fade from
sight, its outline become first hazy, then more and more
difficult to distinguish, till all was of a dull grey hue like the
sky around. One of these snow-clouds had settled down upon
it, the powdery snow first falling lightly, then heavier and
heavier, till the mountain was completely blotted out.
There was, therefore, nothing to be seen from the spur
which I had ascended, and I rejoined my party. We then
started off to tackle the glacier, and at first the way was good
enough — ^that is, we could get along at the rate of one and
a half mile an hour — and, as things seemed fairly smooth for
some way ahead, I went off to make a small exploration of
a glacier coming down from the westward. But after tumbling
about on it for some time, and getting two nasty falls, I was
brought up by a steep ice-fall. I tried to climb the mountain-
side, and had got up it for about two hundred feet, clinging ta
projecting rocks, but when these failed me, I had to give up
the attempt, as it was too dangerous to cross the fall by myself
without the aid of ropes. So I was again unsuccessful, and
making my way back to my party, found them halted in front
of a great mass of accumulated ice fallen from the seracs, or
ice-pinnacles, above. It was a wonderful sight to look at the
great walls and blocks of pure ice, white on the surface, and
Digitized by
Google
i889.] THE SALTORO PASS. 241
a beautiful transparent g^reen where it was broken. But it was
a hard thing to encounter on the way. We formed a plan of
carrying the loads over the debris of ice, and swimming the
ponies across a strip of water ; but on exploring ahead we found
it even worse, and there was nothing for it but to go back some
distance and try another way. This we did, but were yet again
brought to a standstill by some crevasses, and here we halted
for the day.
September 15. — We went back again, and at last found
a way which led us straight up the centre of the glacier. We
got along famously, and are now encamped at the head of the
glacier, close under the pass, which we will attempt to-morrow.
It looks rather like a repetition of the Mustagh, rising like
a wall for about two thousand feet, and nothing but snow and
ice. It may, however, turn out easier upon closer acquaintance.
September 16. — To-day we made an unsuccessful attempt to
cross the Saltoro Pass. I had given orders to be called at
2 a.m., and after having some chota hazri, and making all
necessary preparations, we started at 3.30 a.m. It was snowing
hard and freezing hard, while dense clouds overhead hid the
moon, so that we had barely sufficient light to find our way.
Yesterday afternoon Shukar Ali and I had reconnoitred ahead,
and determined the general line of advance and the best
point at which to attack the pass, and we now proceeded
steadily up the niv^ at the head of the glacier. At first
crevasses were frequent, some visible — great staring rents in
the ice fifty or sixty feet deep — others invisible, being covered
with snow; these last were the dangerous ones, for the snow
would suddenly give way under you, and your legs would
go down a deep, dark hole. But, though this frequently
happened, we had no accidents, and the higher we climbed
the less frequent became the crevasses, though the snow became
softer, and it was heavy work trudging along and sinking knee-
deep at every step.
R
Digitized by
Google
242 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
Day now began to dawn, but the heavy snowstorm did not
cease, and we could only see the lower parts of the mountains,
while their summits were hidden in the clouds. We were
making towards a ravine, up which we conjectured could be
the only possible way to the top of the pass, and were rounding
an icy slope forming one side of the ravine, when suddenly we
heard a report like thunder, and then a rushing sound. We knew
at once that it was an avalanche ; it was coming from straight
above us, and I felt in that moment greater fear than I ever
yet have done, for we could see nothing, but only heard this
tremendous rushing sound coming straight down upon us.
One of the men called out to run, but we could not, for we
were on an ice-slope, up which we were hewing our way with
an axe. The sound came nearer and nearer, then came a
cloud of snow-dust, and the avalanche rushed past us in the
ravine by our side. Had it happened a quarter of an hour
later, or had we started a quarter of an hour earlier, we should
have been in the ravine and buried by the avalanche.
We now continued the ascent of the ice-slope, hoping we
might find a road by that way ; but we were brought up by
a great rent in the ice, a yawning chasm with perpendicular
walls of solid ice. This effectually put an end to our attempt
to cross the pass, for I dared not descend into the ravine,
through fear of avalanches. We therefore were obliged to
return and give up all hopes of reaching the top of the Saltoro
Pass. On our way back we saw another avalanche rush down
the mountain-side, and over the very path we had made in
ascending, covering up our actual footsteps left in the snow.
Seeing, therefore, how dangerous it was to remain where we
were, we hastened on, and very thankful I was when we again
reached the open glacier, and were out of the reach of avalanches.
Snow continued to fall heavily, and we heard the roar of
avalanches on the mountains all around us. Shukar Ali said
that if the sky were to clear, and we could wait a week for the
Digitized by
Google
1889.] THE SALTORO GLACIER, 243
snow to settle, we might find a way over the pass. But in any
case it would have been a piece of difficult mountaineering, and I
could not afford to wait a week in a place where neither fuel nor
grass could be obtained, and where everything was buried in snow
and ice. So I determined upon returning to my camp on the
Oprang River, and gave up any further attempts at crossing
the pass. We accordingly hastened back to our camp at the
head of the glacier, packed up, and marched round the glacier,
the snowstorm still continuing.
September 17. — A heavy snowstorm during the night, and
our camp in the middle of the glacier looked very cheerless
this morning. Ponies, tents, baggage, and everything, were
covered with snow, and snow was still falling heavily when
we struck camp and continued our march down the glacier.
We were able to make a double march, as we had the track
marked out, and the bad places improved by our march up;
and now we are once again on terra firma^ and camped where
we can get grass for the ponies, and a certain amount of fuel,
and nice smooth sand to lie upon at night, instead of the thin
layer of sharp stones which separates us from two or three
hundred feet of solid glacier ice.
The length of this glacier is eighteen miles, and its average
breadth is half a mile ; it is fed by three smaller glaciers on the
west and one on the east At its upper part, immediately
under the pass, it is a smooth undulating snowfield about
a mile and a half in width. Lower down the nivi is split up
into crevasses which increase in size the further down we get.
Then the surface gradually breaks into a mass of ice-domes,
which lower down become sharp needles of pure white ice. On
each side lateral gravel moraines appear, and other glaciers
join, each with its centre of white ice-pinnacles and its lateral
moraines, and preserving each its own distinct course down
the valley until some three miles from its termination, when
the icy peaks are all melted down and the glacier presents
Digitized by
Google
244 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. x.
the appearance of a billowy mass of moraine, and would look
like a vast collection of gravel heaps, were it not that you see,
here and there, a cave or a cliff of ice, showing that the gravel
forms really only a very thin coating on the surface, and that
beneath is all pure solid ice. This ice is of an opaque white,
and not so green and transparent as other glaciers I have
seen, and the snow at the head of the glacier was different to
any I had seen before, for beneath the surface, or when it was
formed into lumps, it was of the most lovely pale transparent
blue. Yesterday I forgot to mention, too, that every flake
of snow that fell in the storm was a perfect hexagonal star,
most beautiful and delicate in form. The mountains on either
side of the valley, especially on the eastern side, are extremely
rugged and precipitous, affording little or no resting-place for
the snow, which drains off immediately into the glacier below.
The western range, the main Mustagh Range, was enveloped
in clouds nearly the whole time, and I only occasionally caught
a glimpse of some peaks of stupendous height, one of them,
the Gusherbrum, over twenty-six thousand feet, and others
twenty-four thousand feet. The snowfall on these mountains
must be very considerable, and it seems that this knot of lofty
mountains attracts the great mass of the snow-clouds, and gets
the share which ought to fall on the Karakoram, while these
latter, being of less height, attract the clouds to a less degree,
and are in consequence almost bare of snow.
Another heavy snowstorm fell during the night, and on the
following morning, September i8, I rode into the camp where
the Gurkha escort and heavy baggage had been left, and thence
sent back some men and fresh ponies to assist the other
wretched ponies, who were in a bad way, for they had had no
grass for four days, and at these high altitudes it is not wise
to give them more than four pounds of grain a day, for if more
than that is given, they seem to lose their breath easily ; and my
own pony, a few marches further on, died from this very cause.
Digitized by
Google
1889.] MAGNESIUM WIRE SIGNALS, 245
During the exploration of the Saltoro Pass I had lived in
a small tent d'abri, not large enough to stand upright in ; and
the return to my larger tent with a table and chair was like
a return to real civilization. My mind was now set at rest
regarding the Saltoro Pass, I should like to have reached
its summit, if the fates had been propitious, but I had seen
enough to satisfy most people that there was no high-road
to India by that way, and I now turned to the exploration of
the Shimshal Pass into Hunza.
On September 21 the whole party started down the valley
of the Oprang River, and then up the Sarpo Laggo stream to
Suget Jangal, one of my camping-grounds on the way to the
Mustagh Pass. Near here I again had a sight of that glorious
peak K.2. The sun was just setting, and long after the other
mountains round had become cold and grey, the warm red
hues of sunset were still clinging to this loftiest tower of the
Mustagh Mountains. From the spur which I had ascended I
could see also the length of the glacier leading up to the
Mustagh Pass, and the snowy barrier over which it leads.
When two years before I had painfully struggled up, I had
thought I should never set eyes on it again, but here once
more it lay before me, and I pictured to myself each little
incident in that hard tussle with the mountains.
Descending the spur, I found the caravan was still far
behind. Darkness had come on, and Suget Jangal, the only
spot in the valley where grass and firewood could be obtained,
was still some miles distant The caravan did not know where
I was, and I did not know where the caravan was, except that
it was not above me in the valley, and must therefore be below.
So I employed a means of signalling which was of the greatest
service to me on this occasion. This was a piece of magnesium
wire which I lighted, and so at once attracted the attention of
my men far away down the valley, and as they came near
enough they answered with the whistles which had been served
Digitized by
Google
246 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
out to each man of the escort Shortly after ten o'clock at
night, after a rough scramble over the rocky boulders which
strewed the valley bottom, we reached our camping-ground at
Suget JangaL
From about a mile above this a large glacier could be seen
flowing from the westward down a wide valley, at the head of
which I thought might be the Shimshal Pass. My Kirghiz
guide assured me that the Shimshal Pass did not He there.
But guides are not infallible. On our maps the Shimshal Pass
was marked very nearly where the head of the glacier would
be ; and though I knew this was only from conjecture, for no
European had yet been anywhere near the Shimshal Pass, I
thought I would just have a look, and if I was wrong, as I
indeed proved to be, I could come back and meekly follow this
Kirghiz guide wherever he chose to take me.
I therefore left the heavy baggage under the charge of one
Gurkha and a Balti coolie, and set out for the exploration of
the glacier, with twelve ponies carrying supplies and fuel for
twelve days for my party and escort On September 23 we
left Suget Jangal, and by midday were again on a glacier.
We had rather a rough march up the glacier that day, but
not so bad as on the way to the Saltoro Pass. The way to
attack these glaciers is evidently this : first to keep along the
side of the glacier, on the lateral moraine, close to the mountain-
side ; you here get some very fair going, though also, at times,
some nasty pieces, where great, rough, sharp boulders are
heaped one on the other, as at the mouth of a quarry.
Presently the glacier closes in on the mountain-side, and you
have then to take a favourable opportunity of plunging into
the centre of the glacier, and ascending the part of it which
is best covered with gravel moraine. Some very careful steer-
ing is here necessary to keep clear of the crevasses ; and the
ponies, and men too, often have a hard time of it, trying to
keep their legs in ascending slopes where the gravel barely
Digitized by
Google
1889.] IN SEARCH OF THE SHIMSHAL PASS. 247
covers the ice. We took our plunge into the middle of this
glacier at midday. Snow was falling, and at 4.30 p.m. the
clouds became so heavy, and it was altogether so threatening,
that I thought it best to halt Of course, no grass or fuel
was obtainable ; but we had brought two pony-loads of wood
with us, so were quite happy, though this was not a particularly
cheerful-looking spot, with the snow falling hard, the great
white ice-pinnacles of the glaciers rising all round, the
mountains hidden by the heavy snow-clouds, and no place to
encamp on but a very stony hollow.
The Gurkha havildar was in great form. He had a joke
about getting hold of some " narm pattar," soft stones, to lie on,
which kept him and all the Gurkhas in roars of laughter. I
asked him where he had got the joke from, and he said some
sahib had made it at Kabul in the Afghan war.
On the following morning we set out in a heavy snowstorm
— so heavy that even the bases of the mountains on each side
of the glacier were at times not visible, and the summits were
not seen till midday, and then only in glimpses. Immediately
on leaving camp we were confronted by a series of very bad
crevasses, running right across our path. Things looked hope-
less at one time, and it was like finding a way through a maze.
The naik and I went on ahead, and by going from one end of
each crevasse to the other, we managed in every case to find
a way across, though to advance a hundred yards we often had
to go at least six times that distance, and once we completely
lost our front in the maze and the snowstorm, and were wander-
ing off up a side glacier, till I recognized that we were in the
wrong direction by a hillside appearing through the mist
We finally got clear of the bad crevasses, and then had a
fairly clear run for a couple of miles, and were beginning to
congratulate ourselves that we had got over the worst of the
glacier, when we came upon another series of crevasses of the
most desperate description — the ice, in fact, was so split up
Digitized by
Google
248 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. X,
that, though the whole party explored in all directions, we
could find no possible way of getting the ponies along. I
therefore decided upon encamping, and going on the morrow
with a few men lightly loaded to the pass. I had some tiffin —
rather an important point on these occasions when the time of
the real tussle has arrived, and you are feeling rather down
with things in general — and then started off to explore a route
for the men to follow ; but although I went in and out every-
where along the whole front, I found it impossible to get ahead.
I then returned to camp, had a cup of good hot tea, and set
out again backwards ; but it was no go. We were in a regular
cul de sac ; ahead were impassable crevasses, and on each side
were the main lines of the glacier pinnacles of pure ice, still
more impracticable than the crevasses.
On September i6 we started back down the glacier, snow
still falling heavily. The Gurkha naik, Shahzad Mir, and my-
self kept looking everywhere for some way of getting off the
glacier on to the mountain-side, where it was evident we should
find a passable road. Once or twice we got right up to the
edge of the glacier, but just a few crevasses and broken crags
of ice always prevented us from actually reaching terra firma.
I was on the point of giving up, when I saw what seemed to
be a practicable route. The others stayed behind, saying it
was impossible ; but I went on and on, and at last reached
the edge of the glacier, and only a pond, heaped up with blocks
of ice and frozen over, separated me from the mountain-side.
The ice was very treacherous, but, by feeling about with my
alpenstock, I got across safely ; and then, going along the
mountain-side for some distance, found a very promising route,
which I followed up for some little distance.
On returning to the lake I found the naik and Shahzad Mir
had followed me, the former having got across all right, but
Shahzad Mir had gone through the ice up to his waist The
water was far out of his depth, and he had only saved himself
Digitized by
Google
i889.] COMFORTLESS QUARTERS, 249
by clinging on to a large block of ice close by. On returning
across the lake I also went through twice, but as I thought the
ice would be stronger by the next morning, I hurried after the
rest of the party, whom I had ordered to stop at a certain point,
and then brought back my own kit, some supplies, grain for the
ponies, and a pony-load of wood to a spot as near to the
lake as ponies could go, while I sent the Gurkhas back to
Suget Jangal.
My intention was to try and reach the supposed pass with
three men carrying loads. I at first meant to go without a
tent, but as it was still snowing hard, and a bitter wind blowing,
while in the night the thermometer had fallen to six degrees,
and at the head of the glacier would probably be below zero,
I decided upon taking the small servants' tent which I was
using on this detached expedition. We carried the poles as
alpenstocks, leaving the pegs behind, as we could use stones
instead, so that the whole weight of the tent was not more
than twenty pounds; and all four could sleep in it at night
The weather was anything but cheering, and the snow very
trying, especially for the men, who had to do the cooking in
the open. I, fortunately, brought only hill-men well accustomed
to this work. I knew well what it would be, and would on no
account bring a plain-servant or even a Kashmiri with me.
The packs arrived covered thick with snow, and neither my
men nor myself had a single dry pair of boots ; nor could
we dry our clothes, for we could only afford a very small
fire, which was not sufficient to dry anything faster than the
falling snow wetted it again. The floor of my tent was snow,
under that a few inches of gravel, and then two or three hundred
feet of ice. However, a good comfortable sheepskin coat helps
one to defy a lot of discomfort Each of the men had also
a good sheepskin coat, with which I provided them at Shahidula,
so we were pretty cheery in spite of the snow and cold.
September 27 was a fine sunny morning. We started off
Digitized by
Google
250 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. x.
three men (Shukar Ali, Ramzan, and Abdula) carrying loads,
and I had prepared a light load for myself, but the men
would not hear of my doing so, and insisted upon carrying it.
I could not have had better or more willing men ; no amount
of hard work ever stopped them. We got down to the lake
all right, and there we were suddenly brought up. The lake
is fed from the melting of the glacier, but, as the sun had not
appeared for the last few days, the water had diminished several
feet, while the layer of ice remained at the top. This layer had
now fallen here and there, and though on the previous day
it was treacherous enough, now it was quite impracticable,
especially for men with loads. I ventured a few yards on to
the ice, but, seeing it falling through all round me with sharp
reports, I hurried back, and we had then to give up all hopes of
reaching the pass. With time and with a proper Alpine equip-
ment we might doubtless have found a way up the glacier and
perhaps over the depression in the range at its head, which we
had supposed to be a pass, but we had gone far enough to see
that this was not the real Shimshal Pass, for which we were
searching ; so, as we could not afford to spend any more time
on these ineffectual struggles with the glacier, we returned to
our late camping-ground, loaded up the ponies, and started off
back to Suget Jangal.
But though I had not found the pass I was seeking, I could
never regret spending those six days on the glacier in the heart
of the mountains. The glacier itself was marvellously beautiful,
and the mountains from which it flowed, and which towered
above it, formed the main range of the Himalayas. With the
sides of the valley hidden by the clouds, one could believe
one's self to be in the midst of the Arctic region. The centre
of the glacier was a mass of pinnacles of opaque white ice,
of every fantastic form and shape. Then among these were
beautiful caverns of ice with walls of transparent green, long
icicles hanging from the roof, and the entrance screened by
Digitized by
Google
1889.] GLACIER SCENERY. 251
fringes of these same dainty pendants. When I can free
my mind from the overpowering sense of grandeur which the
mountains produce, and from the thoughts of the stem,
hard work we had to go through in those parts, I think of
the beauty of that glacier scenery, the delicate transparency
of the walls of ice, the exquisite tinting of the blues and
greens upon it, the fairy caverns, the deep crevasses, and the
pinnacles of ice, as forming a spectacle unsurpassed in its
purity of loveliness. Other scenes are beautiful, and yet others
are impressive by their grandeur. The verdure-covered hills
and vales of England ; the clear, placid lakes of Switzerland ;
and rivers with their verges fringed with foliage, are beautiful ;
and the frowning precipices and bold, rugged peaks seen in
any mountain country are grand. But it is high up among the
loftiest mountain summits, where all is shrouded in unsullied
whiteness, where nothing polished dares pollute, that the
very essence of sublimity must be sought for. It is there
indeed that the grand and beautiful unite to form the sublime.
I called the glacier the Crevasse Glacier, on account of the
great number and size of the crevasses, which were wider, deeper,
and far more frequent than I have seen on any other glacier,
and this I attribute to the bends. The widest branch comes
from the south and makes a bend almost at right angles at
the furthest point we reached, and is here joined by a longer
but narrower branch from the pass. The length is about
twenty-four miles, and the breadth from a thousand to
twelve hundred yards. It ends at an elevation of thirteen
thousand feet above sea-level, at a projecting spur of black
rock, which is opposite to a stream issuing from a small glacier
running down from the second peak on the southern side.
Its lower extremity, for more than two miles, is entirely
covered with moraine, but higher up it presents the magnificent
spectacle of a sea of pure white peaks of ice, with numerous
similar glaciers of smaller size running down to it from the
Digitized by
Google
252 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. x.
lofty snowy mountains on the southern side. On the north
only one glacier of any size joins in, and it is evident that
the southern range gets far the greater portion of the snowfall,
although the mountains on the north are in some cases very
little inferior in height The Crevasse Glacier seemed to me
to be retiring; at any rate I should certainly say it was not
advancing, for the moraine was deposited some few hundred
yards in advance of the ice of the glacier, and there were
marks of glacial action on the mountain-sides far above
the present level of the glacier. The small glaciers — ^those
resembling clotted cream— on the mountain slopes were
certainly retiring. The glacier was very much lower in the
centre than at the sides, and at the sides were the remains
of successive beds of conglomerate, compact and hard, and
level at the top, of a different character altogether to glacial
-r
moraine, so that it appeared as if there had formerly been
a thick bed of conglomerate filling up the valley, and that
it had now been swept out by the glacier. This, however,
is only in the lower half, where the mountain slopes are
comparatively gentle and formed of shingle; higher up, the
sides are precipitous, and there are no signs of the conglomerate
formation. The fall of the glacier as far as we went was
two thousand two hundred and eighty feet in twenty-four
thousand four hundred yards, or about one in thirty-two. Its
general direction is N.N.W.
It was a glorious morning as we descended the glacier —
clear and bright, as it can be only at these great mountain
heights. I set off at a good pace ahead of the men and ponies,
so as to get back to the luxury of my larger tent, table, chairs,
books, and papers as quickly as possible. As I approached
the Suget Jangal camp, the men, when they saw me alone
came rushing out, thinking something desperate must have
happened. I told them that all the matter was that I wanted
some lunch and a change of lower garments, for I had had
Digitized by
Google
1889.] RETURN TO SUGET JANGAL, 253
to ford the glacier stream, which, being of melted ice, was so
cold that it took the breath completely out of my body as I
waded through the water. It was glorious getting into some
clean dry clothing, then into a comfortable ulster, and then,
after a good tiffin, sitting in a chair and having a quiet read.
My appearance, though, was not becoming, for my eyes were
bloodshot and inflamed from partial snow-blindness, and my
nose, ears, and lips blistered from the bitter wind, while my
hands were cut and scratched from frequent falls on the
slippery glacier, and my knuckles cracked from the cold. But
I and all my party were very fit and well — far better, I think
than when we left India.
Digitized by
Google
254 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xi.
CHAPTER XL
A KANJUTI STRONGHOLD.
On September 30, after a day's rest at Suget Jangal, we
resumed our journey down the valley of the Oprang River,
and halted that night at a fine patch of grass about a quarter
of a mile long, to see which was a welcome relief after the
never-ending snow and rocks usually met with. Our next
day's march was a very disagreeable one, as a bitter wind,
which brought with it clouds of gritty dust, was blowing straight
in our faces up the valley. My pony to-day, although he had
been left at Suget Jangal while I was exploring the glacier, and
although he was a hardy Yarkandi, had now become so weak
that three men could not drag him along, and at last he sank
down by the way, and as we could not get him up again, I had
to shoot him.
We made another march down the valley of the Oprang
River, and a very trying one it proved, for we had to cross
the river eleven times, and, as it had now become more than
waist-deep, and very rapid, running over a bottom covered with
boulders, it was at times dangerous work. As I rode the only
pony without a load, I used to do the reconnoitring for ford s.
But even when a place fairly passable had been found, it was
hard to keep the ponies straight to it ; they would drift away
with the current into deep places, and the packs got horribly
wet The crossings were most exciting work, everybody
shouting with all his might at the ponies, and throwing stones
Digitized by
Google
1889.] WANT OF MAPS. 255
at them to keep them straight In spite of it all, we would
see the ponies, with our clothes or bedding, fall into a pool
with the water nearly over their backs. Most of the men got
on the top of the packs, but some waded through the water,
and they had a rough time of it.
We passed the Shimshal River, up which lies the route to
Hunza we were seeking for, but we were rather short of grain
for the ponies, on account of their having had more than their
usual share on the glaciers, where they could get no grass, and,
as I calculated from observations for latitude that we could
not be far from Chong Jangal, where I hoped to find Turdi Kol
with a fresh relay of supplies, I thought it best to go there
first
Chong Jangal was the point on the Yarkand River where
it was believed the Oprang River joined it As I have already
said, we could not carry all the necessary supplies with us,
but had to carry them in two instalments. We had reached
the end of our first instalment, and had to look out for the
second. There was no map of this region, and I could find
no man with any full or accurate knowledge of it, or any in-
formation at all about what lay between the Shimshal Pass and
the Yarkand River. All I could do was to tell Turdi Kol to
go along the Yarkand River with the second instalment to
this place, Chong Jangal, where he said a large river joined
in from the south. This he thought must be the Oprang River,
whose upper waters I should be exploring. The supplies would
therefore be at Chong Jangal ; but whether the river which
joined in there really was the Oprang River, and whether, even
if it was, my party would be able to get along it, nobody knew.
The river might have^ flowed far away from Chong Jangal. It
might never join the Yarkand River at all, or it might flow
through gorges along which it would be impossible to take our
ponies. Of all this we had to take our chance. But Turdi Kol
had been down the Yarkand River before, and before leaving it
Digitized by
Google
256 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xi.
at Surakwat I had got him to tell me about how many miles
lower down Chong Jangal was, and the general direction in
which it lay, and, marking that point approximately on the
map, I had worked out my own survey down the Oprang River
and calculated that we must be now nearing the meeting-place,
so our next few marches were full of interest and excitement,
and each turn we took I expected to see some signs of the
Yarkand River.
On October 3, then, we continued our march down the
Oprang River ; but just when it ought to have struck Chong
Jangal it turned round and went back again, upsetting all my
calculations, and after a very hard and trying day we were still
far from Chong Jangal, although at about noon I thought we
had really reached there. I saw ahead one valley running in
a direction east to west, and another in a northerly direction,
and at the junction a patch of good jungle and grass. This
exactly answered to Turdi Kol's description of the position of
Chong Jangal, and it was a great blow when I found, instead
of the Yarkand River flowing down the valley ahead in a
westerly direction, it was still this Oprang River which flowed
down it in an easterly direction, having deliberately turned
round and gone backwards. It was very trying, because it has
to be crossed and recrossed so many times, and each crossing
becomes more difficult, and even dangerous. Three times that
day, in reconnoitring for a ford, my pony was as nearly as
possible washed off" his legs, and the water came over the seat
of the saddle, leaving only the pony's head and the upper part
of my body out of the water, while I was expecting every
minute to have to swim for it. The water, too, was fearfully
cold, for there was not a drop of water in this river that did
not come from the glaciers. And to add to our troubles, a
nasty wind, with clouds of gritty sand, was blowing down the
valley the whole day long. Altogether it was one of the most
trying days I have experienced on a journey, though I ought
Digitized by
Google
i889."i THE PLUCKY GURKHAS. 257
not to complain so much as the unfortunate men, who had to
wade through the icy water.
The Gurkhas managed to clamber along the hillsides like
goats, but, unfortunately, at the end of the day they were at the
other side of the river to our camp. We had halted because
we had not been able to find a ford ; for the water had risen,
as it always does in the afternoon, on account of the melting
of the glaciers during the day. I was very anxious as to how
I should get them across, and was just mounting a pony to
try the stream, when the first two Gurkhas appeared on the
other side, and, without cogitating about it for half an hour^
as I had done, promptly proceeded to wade through the water
in the most happy-go-lucky way. I shouted to them to stop
till I had tried the depth, but on account of the roar of the
water they did not hear. How they got through I don't know,
for the water came nearly up to their armpits ; it was icy cold,
the current very strong, and the bottom covered with boulders,
and I know from our experiences in Manchuria what that
means. However, they got across all right, and landed with
a broad grin on their faces, as if crossing riVers was the greatest
possible joke. I then rode across, leading another pony with
me. I took up one Gurkha behind me from the other side,
and mounted the remaining two on the second pony, which
I brought across. We then started back. Once or twice my
pony gave some ugly lurches, and I thought we were gone ;
but we got across all right, and I gave the Gurkhas a drop of
whisky all round to cheer their stout little hearts.
We arrived at Chong Jangal at last, but found no Turdi
Kol, no supplies, and no letters. I thought we were never
going to arrive there. We rounded spur after spur, and at each
I expected to see the Yarkand River, and Chong Jangal on the
other side. In the afternoon, after rounding a great bend of
the Oprang River, we entered a wide pebbly plain, and in the
distance could see an extensive jungle. I thought it might
S
Digitized by
Google
258 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xi.
be Chong Jangal, but could see no signs of the Yarkand River.
After riding a mile or two, however, I crossed a considerable
stream running over the pebbly plain. It was much smaller
than the Yarkand was when we left it at Surakwat higher up,
and, instead of being a muddy colour as it then was, was a clear
blue, so I decided that it could not be that river, and that
Chong Jangal must be on the other side of the next spur,
several miles ahead. I was greatly delighted, therefore, when,
on the baggage coming up, the Kirghiz guide said that this
really was the Yarkand River after all, though very much
diminished since we last saw it, because the melting of the
snows had almost ceased, and that the jungle ahead was Chong
Jangal. I hurried on then to see if Turdi Kol had arrived, but
was disappointed to find no traces of him.
Chong Jangal we found to be an extensive stretch of jungle
for these parts, where the mountain-sides are nearly absolutely
bare, and only a few patches of brushwood, generally dwarf
willows and juniper, are to be found in the valley bottom. This
jungle was two miles long and half a mile broad. Some of the
willows were from fifteen to twenty feet high, and there was
plenty of good grass. There were, too, the remains of houses,
and the spot had been inhabited and cultivated at one time,
and, now that the raids from Hunza have been put an end to
by the Indian Government, there is no reason why it should
not be so again.
On October 6, a Kirghiz came riding into camp with a
very welcome post, the first I had received for a month since
leaving Shahidula. He had followed our tracks all round. By
this post I heard from Colonel Nisbet that the Hunza chief,
Safder Ali, had been very truculent on Captain Durand's visit,
and I was warned to be careful about entering the country ;
but a subsequent letter said that the chief had apologized for
his rudeness, and promised to allow me to go through. With
such a man I could not, however, be very sure of my reception,
Digitized by
Google
I889-] A ROBBERS* STRONGHOLD. 259
and was all the more keen to reach his country and test his
feelings as soon as possible.
But the second instalment of supplies had not yet arrived,
and each day I looked anxiously up the valley of the Yarkand
River for signs of Turdi Kol, as I was beginning to fear some
mishap, and to imagine that we would be stranded in the
middle of these mountains without anything to eat At last,
on October 10, Turdi Kol arrived with the long-expected
supplies, and we then retraced our steps to the junction of
the Shimshal River, and ascended the valley through which it
flows. Up this valley, at five miles from its junction with the
Oprang, is a Kanjuti outpost called Darwaza, or "the gate."
It was from this place that the raiders started on their
expeditions, and as we ascended the wild, narrow mountain
valley in which it is situated, we wondered what sort of recep-
tion we should meet with from these robber bands. Rounding
a spur, we saw in the distance a tower erected on the top of
a clifF, and approaching nearer we saw that the whole line of
the cliff, where it was at all accessible, was covered by a loop-
hole wall, at the upper end of which was a second tower. The
cliff formed the bank of a deep ravine, which cut transversely
across the main valley. Looking up the valley on the right
was the unfordable Shimshal river ; on the left were precipitous
mountains, and in front this deep ravine. The only possible
way up the valley was by a difficult zigzag path up the side
of this ravine, and that was guarded by the two towers. Some
smoke was curling up from these towers, so we knew that
they were tenanted, and the exciting moment had now arrived
when we should have to beard these raiders in their very den.
I carefully reconnoitred the position with my field-glasses,
50 as to be able to decide on our best plan of action in case
of a hostile reception. The path zigzagged down one side of
the ravine, which was about two hundred feet deep, and up the
other, and passed immediately under the wall and through
Digitized by
Google
26o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xu
a gateway in the tower. It would have been impossible to
effect an entrance if the Kanjutis chose to be hostile, for even
if they did not fire at us, they could have annihilated us by
hurling down stones. I thought, therefore, that my best plan
would be not to commit my whole party to such a risk, but to
go on with an interpreter, and leave the Gurkhas on the top
of the cliff on our side of the ravine, to cover the retreat in case
the Kanjutis proved hostile. Having made these dispositions^
I set off down into the ravine accompanied by Ramzan, the
interpreter, and Shahzad Mir, the orderly, who spoke Persian.
We had not gone very far, when the Gurkha naik came running
after us and said that at Shahidula I had promised that he
should be allowed to go first. The reader will remember that
the timid Kirghiz had prophesied that whoever should appear
first before this Kanjuti outpost would certainly be killed, and
I had in chaff said to the Gurkha naik that he should be sent
on first, and now, taking my word seriously, he had claimed
this as a privilege.
We had descended to the bottom of the ravine, and climbed
halfway up the opposite bank. The door through the tower
was still open, and no one could be seen about, when suddenly
the door was banged, the wall was manned by wild-looking
Kanjutis, shouting and waving us back, and pointing their
matchlocks at us. We were not fifty feet from them, and I
expected at any moment to have bullets and stones whizzing
about our ears ; so I halted and beckoned to them, holding up
one finger and signing to them in this way to send one man
down to us. Gradually the hubbub ceased ; they still kept their
matchlocks pointed at us, but the door was opened and two
men came down to us. We had a long parley together, and I
told them who I was, that I was coming to visit their chief, and
that Captain Durand had already spoken to Safder Ali about
my coming. They said they had heard of this, but they wished
to make quite sure that I had not an army with me, so I sent
Digitized by
Google
i889.] A PRECARIOUS POSITION. 261
them to count for themselves exactly how many men I had.
The Gurkhas then joined me, and we passed through the tower
together ; but just at the entrance, which was lined with Kanjutis
in a double row, a man rushed at my pony and seized the bridle.
I thought for a moment there was treachery. The Gurkhas
sprang forward, and in half a second there would have been
a scrimmage, when the man let go, and laughed, and said he
had only intended it as a joke.
We then all gathered together round a fire on the inside of
this line of wall, and now fresh difficulties arose. The Kanjutis
said that all the Kirghiz with me must go on to Hunza ; but
this I could not agree to, as Turdi Kol had to return with the
camels I had hired. So, being now on the right side of the
position, with the Gurkhas round me, instead of the wrong side
of the wall with the Kanjuti matchlocks pointed at us, I was
able to take up a high tone, and tell these men that I did not
intend to be dictated to what I was to do or what I was not
to do. The Kirghiz were to go back, and they, the Kanjutis,
would be held responsible if they were molested in any way.
Another difficulty was in regard to Turdi Kol, the Kirghiz
chief, who was standing with us round the fire. The Kanjutis,
not knowing who he was, said to me that their chief, Safder
Ali, particularly wanted to get hold of Turdi Kol, as he had
shot one of the Kanjutis in the raid of the previous year, and
they asked me where he was. Turning to Turdi Kol, but
addressing him by a hypothetic name, I said to him, " Sattiwal,
do you know where Turdi Kol is ? " Turdi Kol replied, " Yes ;
he is behind with the camels." And we kept up this deceit
the whole time, though a little Gurkha as nearly as possible
spoilt everything through calling Turdi Kol by his right name,
and then, discovering his mistake, correcting himself and going
off into a loud laugh. Gurkhas are brave, cheery little men,
but they have not the wits of a hog.
We stood together for a long time round the fire, a curious
Digitized by
Google
262 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xi.
group — rough, hard, determined-looking Kanjutis, in long loose
woollen robes, round cloth caps, long curls hanging down their
ears, matchlocks slung over their backs, and swords bound to
their sides; the timid, red-faced Kirghiz; the Tartar-featured
Ladakis ; the patient, long-suffering Baltis ; the sturdy, jovial
little Gurkhas ; the grave Pathan, and a solitary Englishman,
met together here, in the very heart of the Himalayas, in the
robbers* stronghold. It is on thinking over occasions like this
that one realizes the extraordinary influence of the European
in Asia, and marvels at his power of rolling on one race upon
another to serve his purpose. An Asiatic and a European
fight, the former is beaten, and he immediately joins the
European to subdue some other Asiatic. The Gurkhas and
the Pathans had both in former days fought desperately against
the British ; they were now ready to fight equally desperately
for the British against these raiders around us, and their
presence had inspired so much confidence in the nervous
Kirghiz that these even had summoned up enough courage to
enter a place which they had before never thought of without
a shudder.
I now found that the Hunza chief really meant to receive
me, and the man in charge of the outpost informed me that
an official would meet me on the other side of the Shimshal
Pass to welcome me in the name of the chief. So we marched
on towards the pass for another three and a half miles, to a
camping-ground called Afdigar, where grass and low willows
and other scrub for firewood were plentiful. A number of
small side nullahs were crossed, and each was lined with a
wall of defence. Seven Hunza men came on with us, and the
Gurkhas quickly fraternized with them, winning their hearts by
small presents of tobacco. I also gave them a good dinner,
and their tongues were gradually loosed, and on that and other
nights that they were with us they told us many interesting
things about their country. They complained much of the
Digitized by
Google
j889.] THE SHIMSHAL PASS. 263
hardships they had to suffer on the raids, and the little benefit
they got from them. Everything they took, they said, had to
be handed over to the chief, and all the raids were organized
by him. If they were suspected of not having given up all
they had, or if the chief wanted to squeeze more taxes out
of them, they were stripped naked and kept for hours in a
freezing glacier stream. They were in abject terror of their
chief, and during their conversation they were constantly dis-
cussing the probabilities of their heads being cut off. If they
did this or that they would lose their heads, and they would
illustrate the action by drawing the edge of their hands across
their necks. They wore always a grave, hard look, as of men
who lived in a constant struggle for existence, and were too
much engrossed by it to think of any of the levities of life. I
afterwards found that down in the lower valleys of Hunza the
people are fond of polo and dancing, but these I first met were
men from the upper valleys, where the struggle is harder, and
where they were frequently turned out for raiding expeditions.
On the following day, October 15, we at last crossed the
Shimshal Pass, for which I had been seeking during so many
weeks. The ascent was steep for a mile and a half, but not
really difficult, and afterwards the road gradually ascends to
the pass, which is a pamir, as the Kanjutis called it, that is,
a nearly level plain or very shallow and wide trough between
high mountains on either side. A mile from the summit we
passed a collection of shepherds' huts, used in the summer ; at
the summit, which was fourteen thousand seven hundred feet
above sea-level, there were two small lakes. There was no
snow at all on the pass, which was a most unexpectedly easy
one. We had been anticipating struggles with glaciers and
climbs up rocky precipices, but here was a pass which we could
have ridden ponies over if we had wanted to do so.
This Shimshal Pass forms one of those remarkable depres-
sions which are here and there met with in these mountains. Up
Digitized by
Google
264 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.xi.
to this point the Mustagh Range is lofty and rugged in the
extreme. Everywhere it is covered with snow and ice, and
peaks of great height rise along it. There are within the neigh-
bourhood of the Shimshal Pass many of these peaks, twenty-
three and twenty-four thousand feet in height. But here it
suddenly drops down to fifteen thousand feet, and the summits
on the northern side of the pass, though still lofty, are smooth
and rounded instead of sharp and ragged. The explanation
that suggests itself to me is that the mountains on the south
side of the pass are of more recent upheaval than those on the
north, that the latter have been longer exposed to the wearing
action of the snow and ice, and that consequently peaks which
may formerly have been as lofty and rugged as those still
standing to the south have now become worn and smoothed
down. And though the watershed of the Mustagh Range runs
across the pass and away in a northerly direction through the
crests of these rounded mountains, I think that it would not
be right to call this the main axis, for that, as it seems to me,
runs away in a more westerly direction from the south side
of the Shimshal Pass, and passes along a few miles above
Hunza. This line passes through a series of peaks, more than
one of which are over twenty-five thousand feet in height, and
looked at either on the spot or on the map this appears to be
the true axis of the range, while the watershed to the north
seems merely a subsidiary offshoot
Descending by a steep zigzag from the Shimshal Pass, we
encamped near a second collection of shepherds* huts, to which
the Hunza men come in the summer with their flocks. There
were patches of good grass both here and on the flat surface
of the pass, but no trees, and only low dwarf bushes. On the
next morning, leaving my party behind here, I went on with
a few men to examine the country a little further in the
direction of Hunza, though it was my intention to return over
the Shimshal Pass, and go up on to the Pamirs, before finally
Digitized by
Google
1889.] LETTER FROM SAFDER ALL 265
proceeding to the capital of the country. The valley we were
in soon narrowed to a precipitous gorge, and Lieutenant
Cockerill, who explored it three years later, confirmed the
stories of the Kirghiz, and indeed of the Hunza men them-
selves, that the road along it is quite impracticable for ponies,
and even very difiicult for men.
An official, with a letter from Safder Ali, the chief of Hunza,
came into camp this day. Captain Durand had duly impressed
him with the necessity of seeing me through his country, and
he accordingly extended a welcome to me. I wrote him back
a letter thanking him for his welcome, and saying I wished
to travel on the Pamirs first, and would do myself the pleasure
of paying him a visit a few weeks later. I then returned with
my party across the Shimshal Pass, and rejoining Turdi Kol
and the Kirghiz, who had been left behind with the camels,
again descended the Oprang River to its junction with the
Yarkand River, or Raskam River as it is known locally, at
Chong Jangal.
Digitized by
Google
266 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [CHAP, xiu
CHAPTER XIL
BY THE SKIRTS OF THE PAMIRS TO HUNZA.
The Raskam River is what is usually considered the main
branch of the river which flows by Yarkand, but till now the
Oprang branch of this river had not been explored, and this
latter certainly has a claim to be considered the main branch.
The Raskam is the longer branch of the two, being about a
hundred and eighty miles from its source, which was explored
by Hayward to its junction with the Oprang at Chong Jangal ;
while the Oprang, as now explored by me from near its source
throughout its course, is not more than a hundred and fifty
miles. But the Oprang, in the month of October at any rate^
has quite twice tha volume of water — a fact which is easily
understood when it is considered what a vast area of glaciers
along the main range it drains.
Between these two branches of the Yarkand River lies a
range which, so far as I could learn, can only be crossed at the
Aghil Pass. It runs in a general north-west direction, parallel
to and intermediate between the Mustagh Range and the
western Kuen-lun Mountains. It is a hundred and twenty
miles in length, and is broken up into a series of bold up-
standing peaks, the highest of which must be close on twenty-
three thousand feet Near its junction with the Mustagh
Mountains there are some large glaciers like those which fill
the valleys leading down from the main watershed, but towards
its western extremity these vast mers de glace are not seen, and
Digitized by
Google
1889.] / GET RID OF THE PONIES. 267
only the lesser glaciers are met with on the higher slopes. The
mountain-sides are perfectly bare, and only the scantiest scrub
is found in the valley bottoms.
Akal Jan, a Kirghiz who belonged to the Tagh-dum-bash
Pamir, but whom I had met at Shahidula, while we were
exploring the passes, had gone to his home on the Pamir and
collected camels and yaks, which he now of his own accord
brought to Chong Jangal. He was also the bearer of a letter
from Lieutenant Bower, who, with Major Cumberland, had
made his way on to the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir by way of
Shahidula, Kugiar, and Sarikol. In this letter was the infor-
mation that Captain Grombtchevsky, the well-known Russian
traveller, who had in the previous year found his way into-
Hunza, was now travelling towards Ladak, and would probably
meet me on the way. Being anxious to see Lieutenant Bower,
I despatched an urgent message to him to try and meet me
at Tashkurgan, and set out from Chong Jangal on October
21, descending the Yarkand River towards the Tagh-dum-bash
Pamir.
We saw many signs of cultivation, and were told by the
Kirghiz that down to about forty years ago this valley was
well populated, and that even now Kirghiz from the Tagh-dum-
bash occasionally cultivate some of the ground in the side
valleys, where they are well hidden in case of Kanjuti raids.
Trees, too, are here met with, and in the Uruk valley there are
still a few apricot trees.
The ponies had now become completely knocked up, and
although the road here is good, even the unladen animals could
not keep up with the loaded camels. The camels and yaks
which Akal Jan had brought were sufficient to carry the whole
of our baggage, so I discharged the ponies and sent them back
to Ladak. Working at high altitudes among these mountains,
where the road is always difficult, and grass at the camping-
grounds very scarce, it is impossible to keep ponies going
Digitized by
Google
268 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
almost continuously, as I had been obliged to do, and in future
explorations of a similar kind, it would be advisable, if possible,
to arrange for changes of transport.
At the camping-ground near the junction of the Ilisu with
the Yarkand River, I received a letter from Captain Grombt-
chevsky, written in Turki, and saying that he had halted at
Khaian-aksai and was anxious to meet me. I answered, in
Persian and English, that I was very glad to have the oppor-
tunity of meeting so distinguished a traveller, and would
arrange to encamp with him the next day.
On October 23 we marched to Khaian-aksai, leaving the
valley of the Yarkand River and ascending a narrow valley
whose bottom was almost choked up with the thick growth of
willow trees. Rounding a spur, we saw ahead of us the little
Russian camp, and on riding up to it a fine-looking man dressed
in the Russian uniform came out of one of the tents and
introduced himself as Captain Grombtchevsky. He was about
thirty-six years, tall, and well built, and with a pleasant, genial
manner. He greeted me most cordially, and introduced me to
a travelling companion who was with him, Herr Conrad, a
German naturalist. We had a short talk, and he then asked
me to have dinner with .him: This was a very substantial
repast of soup and stews, washed down with a plentiful supply
of vodka.
This was the first meeting of Russian and English exploring
parties upon the borderlands of India, and there was much
in each of us to interest the other. Captain Grombtchevsky
had already been to Hunza, having made a venturesome journey
across the Pamirs into that country in 1888, that is, the year
before we met It had on the present occasion been his
intention, he informed me, to penetrate to the Punjab through
Chitral or Kafiristan, but the Amir of Afghanistan had refused
him permission to enter Afghan territory on his way there.
He had accordingly come across the Pamirs, and was now
Digitized by
Google
1889.] CAPTAIN GROMBTCHEVSKY. 269^
hoping to enter Ladak and Kashmir, for a permission to da
which he was writing to the British Resident in Kashmir.
Captain Grombtchevsky's party consisted of seven Cossacks,,
a munshi who accompanied him to Hunza in the previous year,,
and one servant He lived in a small light tent of umbrella-
like construction ; Herr Conrad, the naturalist, lived in another ;.
the Cossacks lived in a very flimsy tent d'abri, with both ends-
open, which must have been an uncomfortable arrangement
when the bitter winds of these high lands were in full force ;.
and the servants lived in a fourth tent Such was their little
camp. The Cossacks appeared to do all the work ; they
scoured the mountain-sides for the ponies in the morning, fed
them, and saddled and loaded them for the march ; they formed
a guard during the march, and at night Captain Grombtchevsky
always had a sentry over his tent. For all this work they
appeared to be indifferently equipped. Their wretched apology
for a tent has already been described ; their food seemed poor
and insufficient, as they lived almost entirely on mutton, and
ate even the entrails of the sheep, and seldom had any flour^
as there was only ninety pounds in camp for the whole party
for three months. The liberality of our Government, indeed,
was very apparent on this occasion, for the contrast between
the parties was remarkable. The Gurkhas had two snug little
tents, with waterproof sheets, and numdahs, and everything
that could be done to make them comfortable, and, as I had
been given a liberal allowance of money for the expenses of
the expedition, my men had as much and even more than they
wanted of mutton, flour, rice, tea, and sugar, although we had
then been travelling for seventy-one days from the last village
where supplies were obtainable, and all we had with us had
had to be brought from Chinese territory, where the rulers
might have stopped our supplies. But, although the Cossacks
did not strike me as being well cared for, they were good,
sound, hardy fellows, who looked well able to stand the rough
Digitized by
Google
270 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xil.
work they had to do. They were small, but thick-set men,
averaging about five feet six inches in height, fair in com-
plexion, thoroughly European in appearance, and resembling
very much our English country labourers. They were clothed
in khaki jackets, tight pantaloons, and high boots reaching
above the knee ; over this they wore a long brown great-coat,
and at night a heavy sheepskin coat reaching to the ankles.
The arms consisted of a rifle and sword. On the whole, the
term " rough and ready " would summarize the general impres-
sions left upon me by them.
Captain Grombtchevsky expressed his opinions freely on
many subjects, and was enthusiastic in his description of the
Russian army. He said that the Russian soldier went
wherever he was ordered to go, and did not think about such
things; that he looked upon the general of an army as his
father, who would provide all that was possible, and if at the
end of a hard day's march he found neither water to drink nor
food to eat, he would still not complain, but would go on
cheerfully till he died, and when he died there were many
more Russians to take his place. Grombtchevsky quoted many
instances from the Central Asian campaigns to illustrate this
statement, and it is undoubtedly true that the Russian soldier
is brave, enduring, cheerful, and uncomplaining; but it is equally
true that Russian generals and their stafis have often shown
themselves incapable of organizing large forces properly, and
that the knowledge that there are always plenty of men behind
has caused them to be so negligent that many a Russian
soldier's life has been sacrificed through want of necessary
arrangements. This may matter little in wars close at home ;
but in an expedition where each man has to be transported
for hundreds of miles through countries where nearly all the
food for him has also to be transported, a general cannot afford
to have his men dropping off from neglect
In the afternoon Captain Grombtchevsky asked for an
Digitized by
Google
i889.] GURKHAS AND COSSACKS. 271
opportunity of inspecting the Gurkha escort, and I had them
drawn up for the purpose. The Russian officer looked at them,
and then made a remark to me. The Gurkha non-com-
missioned officer, thinking that Captain Grombtchevsky must
necessarily be remarking on their small size, whispered to me
to tell him that these Gurkhas I had with me were unusually
small, but that the rest of their regiment were much bigger
than Captain Grombtchevsky himself. The Russian officer
was well over six feet in height, and the average of a Gurkha
regiment must be a good six inches lower, for Gurkhas are
a small, thick-set race ; so I could not commit myself to quite
so flagrant an ''exaggeration," but I told Captain Grombt-
chevsky how the Gurkha had wanted to impose upon him,
and he was immensely tickled. Altogether he was very much
taken with the appearance of the Gurkhas, and with the
precision and smartness of the few drill exercises they went
through. He said he had thought the native troops of India
were irregulars, but he now saw that they were as good as
any regulars. I think the Gurkhas were equally impressed
with the soldierly bearing of the Russian officer ; but I was
surprised to see that they did not fraternize with the Cossacks,
as they are noted for doing with British soldiers, and I found
the reason to be that they rather looked down upon the
Cossacks, on account of their being less well paid and equipped
than themselves. This is a thoroughly Oriental way of regard-
ing things ; but for my own part I was much struck with the
many excellent qualities of the Cossacks, and no officer could
wish for any better material for soldiers than they afford.
Finding Captain Grombtchevsky's company so agreeable,
I halted a day with him, and on October 25 set out again
towards the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir. On leaving camp I made
the Gurkha escort salute the Russian officer by presenting
arms, and Captain Grombtchevsky returned the compliment by
ordering his Cossacks to "carry swords." We then parted,
Digitized by
Google
2/2 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xiu
Captain Grombtchevsky saying to me that he hoped we might
meet again, either in peace at St. Petersburg or in war on
the Indian frontier ; in either case I might be sure of a warm
welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed that meeting with a Russian
officer. We and the Russians are rivals, but I am sure that
individual Russian and English officers like each other a great
deal better than they do the individuals of nations with which
they are not in rivalry. We are both playing at a big game,
and we should not be one jot better off for trying to conceal
the fact.
On the following day, October 26, we crossed the Kurbir
Pass on to the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir. The pass is an easy
one, fourteen thousand seven hundred feet high, and is quite
practicable for laden animals. The change of scenery now
was very striking. In place of the deep ravines and precipitous
mountain-sides that we had hitherto been accustomed to in
the valleys of the Yarkand and Oprang Rivers, we now found
great open, almost level plains, some four or five miles broad,
running down between ranges of mountains only a few thousand
feet higher than the valleys. Grass, too, was plentiful, and
there was no need for laboriously seeking good tracks for the
ponies, as on the Pamir you could go anywhere. But the wind
was bitterly cold, and although the temperature at night did
not usually descend below zero (Fahrenheit), yet it was very
much more trying than the cold which we had been experiencing
lately on the Yarkand River. There, indeed, the thermometer
was quite as low as on the Pamir, but the air was generally
still, and there was no wind to drive the cold right into the
marrow of one's bones.
Our first encampment was at a place called Ilisu, where
one of the felt tents of the Kirghiz had been prepared for me,
and where the headman of the Pamir, Kuch Mohammed Bey
by name, had arrived to meet me. He was not very prepossess-
ing in appearance, and had a bad reputation for giving the
Digitized by
Google
1889.] AT TASHKURGAN, 273
Kanjuti Raja information to enable him to carry out his raids
successfully ; but he was friendly enough to me, and gave me
all the assistance which I required. And this was a satisfactory
thing, for he was really under the Chinese, and might have
made difficulties here, as I had with me no Chinese passport,
and had to trust to establishing friQndly relations with the
inhabitants to enable me to get through the country without
hindrance.
The next day I left my escort, and set out to meet Major
Cumberland and Lieutenant Bower at Tashkurgan, some
seventy miles distant This place I reached on the following
day, and found them encamped a few miles lower down. The
pleasure of meeting Englishmen again, and being able to talk
in my own language, may well be imagined.
They had set out from Leh about two weeks before
me, and, accompanied by M. Dauvergne, had travelled by
Shahidula to the Kilian Pass, and from there had struck west-
ward to Kugiar, near which place they had met with Colonel
Pieotsof, the Russian traveller, who had succeeded the late
General Prjevalsky in command of the expedition to Tibet.
They say that this party had from eighty to one hundred
camels, besides about twenty ponies. The guard consisted of
twenty-five Cossacks, and they had no native servants whatever,
the Cossacks doing the whole of the work. They lived in
felt tents, and were apparently travelling very leisurely and
comfortably. From Kugiar, Major Cumberland had made his
way across the Tisnaf valley, which he describes as being very
beautiful and abounding in fruit, to the Yarkand River, and
from there up the valley of the Tung River, also a very fruitful
one, to Tashkurgan. This road has never been traversed by
Europeans, and, from Major Cumberland's account, it would
appear to be not an easy one, by reason of the succession of
passes over the spurs running down from the big ranges which
had to be crossed.
T
Digitized by
Google
274 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xii.
They had also met Captain Grombtchevsky, and had been
as much struck as I was with his genial manner, though they
had warned him of the difficulties he would be likely to meet
in gaining permission to enter Ladak, accompanied as he was
with an escort of Cossacks.
The winter had now fairly set in, and as two passes on the
main range had still to be explored, it was necessary for me
to return quickly to my party. I accordingly had to leave
Major Cumberland again on October 30, and retrace my
steps down the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir.
The Sarikolis seemed very friendly disposed, and as I was
passing through Tisnaf, a small walled village a mile or two
north of Tashkurgan, the headman met me and pressed me
to come in to breakfast, a request which I was very glad to
accept. He took me to a small house, and brought me bread
and tea, which he ate with me.
I was told that this year many fugitives from Shignan had
been driven here by the Afghans, but most of them had been
sent back by the Chinese, after they had received an assurance
from the governor of Shignan that no harm should be done
to them.
Tashkurgan and its neighbourhood was visited by Colonel
Gordon, with some members of Forsyth's Yarkand Mission,
in 1874, ^^ their way to Wakhan and the Great and Little
Pamirs, and there is nothing which I need add to the descrip-
tion of it which will be found in the report of the Mission.
The Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, of which Tashkurgan may be
said to be the northernmost limit, had not been visited by
Colonel Gordon's party, and a short description of it may
therefore be interesting.
The Pamir may be said to commence, one branch at the
Khunjerab Pass, and another at the Wakhujrui Pass, and to
extend northwards to Tashkurgan, where the district of Sarikol
begins. The Pamir is inhabited chiefly by Kirghiz, but there
Digitized by
Google
i889.] THE TAGH'DUM'BASH PAMIR. 275
are also a few Sarikolis, All of these keep large flocks and
herds, but cultivation and houses are not seen beyond Tash-
kurgan. The Pamir itself is a plain four or five miles broad,
rising very gently on both sides to the mountain ranges by
which it is enclosed. It gives one the impression of formerly
having been a deep valley between two mountain ranges, which
has now been filled up by the dibris brought down by former
glaciers.
On account of the insufficient rainfall, this valley has not
been washed out and cleared of the cUbriSy and consequently is
now a plain at a high elevation. The Pamir rises from ten
thousand feet at Tashkurgan, to fourteen thousand three hundred
feet at the Khunjerab Pass. It is mostly covered with coarse
scrub and gravel, but there are also some fine stretches of good
grass. Fuel is very scarce, and the inhabitants generally use
dung' for their fires.
The total number of inhabitants, including women and
children, probably does not exceed three hundred. They are
a somewhat rough lot, and mostly bad characters, who have
fled, for some reason, from Shahidula, the Alai, or the Tagarma
Pamir. The headman, Kuch Mahommed, really belonged to
the Kirghiz of Andijan, but had been placed here by the Chinese,
and was in charge of the frontier in this direction ; he, however,
was also in the pay of the chief of Hunza, and seemed to have
a good deal more respect for him than for the Chinese.
On October 30 I rejoined my escort on the Karachukur
stream, and the following day set out for the Khunjerab Pass,
which had just been explored by Lieutenant Bower. On the
way I passed an encampment belonging to a Sarikoli, who very
kindly asked me to have some refreshment ; his son had passed
through India on his way to Mecca, and could speak a little
Hindustani. He was delighted to find an Englishman to speak
to, and he talked over all his experiences of India.
Heavy clouds had been collecting for the last few days.
Digitized by
Google
276 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xii.
and during the night, which I spent in a yurt set up for me by
Akal Jan, it snowed heavily. Yurts are generally constructed
with a large hole some two and a half feet in diameter in the
top, to allow the smoke from the fire going out. On this occa-
sion, when I woke in the morning I found the floor of the yurt
covered with snow, which, when the fire had gone out, came in
from the opening. It was now falling heavily outside, and the
whole country was covered with it, so the prospect for the
exploration of the pass was not very promising.
However, I set out with two good men, leaving the rest
of the party behind, and, marching through the snow, reached
the summit of the pass at midday. The route was perfectly
easy, so that we could ride the whole way to the summit On
the other side, however, the road could be seen running down a
narrow gorge ; and beyond this there is a pass over a secondary
range, which at this time of the year is impracticable. The
mountains here seemed to be of no great height compared
with the mountains to be seen further east There is another
pass called the Oprang Pass, up a side valley, which leads down
a valley to the Oprang River at Shor-Bulak, thus forming an
alternative route to that by the Kurbu Pass ; this road, however,
is said to be very difficult and now out of use.
Ovis poll are said to abound in this part, and Bower had
told me that he had shot six near the Khunjerab Pass ; but
to-day it was snowing so heavily that nothing could be seen of
them, and I only saw a few wolves, which prey upon these Ovis
poli^ and catch the old rams when their horns have become so
heavy as to retard their progress.
While descending from the pass to the small camp which
had been brought to the foot of it, the snow ceased, the wind
dropped, the sun came out, and the whole air became glistening
with shining particles. This is a very curious phenomenon.
I had at first thought that it was the sun shining on minute
particles of snow, but I soon found that no snow at all was
Digitized by
Google
i889.] TO THE MINTAKA PASS. 277
falling, and I am quite unable to account for these glistening
particles. The Kirghiz informed me that it usually occurred
after a fall of snow, and was a presage of great cold hereafter.
The thermometer indeed went rapidly down, and at six o'clock
in the evening was five degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) ; but then
a wind sprang up, which immediately brought the thermometer
up to zero, and during the night it never fell below that, though
the thermometer of one's senses would have registered it very
much below zero.
There was now only one more pass to explore, and I hastened
back to get round the Mintaka Pass, for I was beginning to fear
that I might perhaps be prevented by the snow from getting
across the range into Hunza. Marching down to Akal Jan's
camp, I had the good fortune to see a herd of OvisfioU in the
distance ; I managed to get fairly close to them, but not near
enough for a shot, and by the time I had reached a rock from
behind which I had hoped to bag one, I found they had
disappeared right up the mountain-side, and were only just
distinguishable through a telescope, looking down disdainfully
at me from the top of the highest crag. This stalk after the
Ovis poli showed me how much my strength had been reduced
lately, from being so long at great elevations ; and, moreover,
owing to my having had no proper cook, my appetite had also
gradually fallen away, and I had become too weak for any
great exertions. But, fortunately, the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir
is so easy that one can ride everywhere.
On November 4 I rejoined the Gurkha escort at Kara-
chukur, where they had remained while I was exploring the
Khunjerab Pass. They had now been halted for ten days, and
were glad enough to get on the move again.
On the following day we marched up the Karachukur to
Mintaka Aksai, where the stream from the Mintaka Pass joins
the Karachukur, which flows from the Wakhujrui Pass, leading
over to Wakhan. A road also leads from the valley of the
Digitized by
Google
278 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
Karachukur by the Baijih Pass to Aktash, on the Little Pamir.
This is practicable for ponies, and was crossed this year by
Captain Grombtchevsky.
On this march Kuch Mahommed asked me in to breakfast
at his camp, which is situated close to the road ; and I there
found two Kashgaris who were officials sent by the Chinese
Taotai of Kashgar to inquire into affairs on this frontier.
After breakfasting, I again set out, but was passed on the
road by these two Kashgaris, who arrived at the Mintaka Aksai
camp shortly before me. They here found a tent set apart for
some one, and, on asking Kuch Mahommed whom it was for,
were told that it had been prepared for me. On hearing this
they were furious, and demanded why a tent had not been
prepared for them also. Kuch Mahommed tried to smooth them
down, but he did not offer them the tent, and I was glad on
my arrival to find it still kept for me, though, when I heard the
circumstances, I was surprised at his having done so, as I was
really on Chinese territory, and these were Chinese officials,
while I was simply an English traveller. The Kashgaris were
only given a place with the Kirghiz in one of their tents, and
soon after my arrival, I heard that they had summoned a
lev^e of all the Kirghiz in the place, and had warned them
to be careful what they were doing. They also got hold of
my interpreter, and began questioning him about my doings,
and asked for my passport On hearing this, I sent them a
message requesting them not to interfere with my servants,
and saying that if they wanted any information about my
doings, I should be perfectly ready to give it them, and that
when I had leisure I would send for them, and they might
ask me any questions they wished.
Next morning I sent to them to say that I was at leisure,
and would give them all the information they wished. They
came over to my tent, and, after giving them tea and treating
them politely, I told them that I was now returning to India
Digitized by
Google
1889.] DISMISSING MY KIRGHIZ. 279
by Hunza, and was merely crossing the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir
on my way there. I told them that China and England were
friendly with each other, and that, though I had not now a
passport, as I had not been aware that I should have to cross
a portion of Chinese territory, I had travelled, two years
ago, from Peking, the capital of China, with a passport from
the Emperor, right through to Yarkand and Kashgar. The
Kashgari officials, on hearing this, said they were perfectly
satisfied ; that the Chinese and English were always friends ;
but that they should like me to put down what I had said
in writing, that they might show it to the Taotai at Kashgar.
This I readily consented to do, and, after more tea-drinking
and polite speeches, we parted in a very friendly manner, and
soon after the Kirghiz came in to say that the Kashgari officials
had given orders that I was to be given every assistance.
This would be my last day amongst the Kirghiz, and it
was necessary, therefore, to pay them up, and give them
presents for the service they rendered me. I accordingly
paid them very liberally for the hire of camels, yaks, etc, and
also gave each of the three headmen some presents. They,
however, had heard exaggerated reports of the presents which
I had given to the Shahidula Kirghiz, and expected to receive
more than I had given them, and one of them, Juma Bai,
was impertinent enough afterwards to send back my present,
saying it was insufficient I immediately sent my interpreter
with a sheep, which Juma Bai had given me on the previous
day, and with my presents which he had returned, back to
the Kirghiz, and told him to throw away the tea and cloth, etc.,
which I had given him, before his ^yos, to turn the sheep loose
in the valley, and to express my extreme displeasure at .being
insulted in the way I had been.
Juma Bai happened to be living with the two Kashgaris,
and when they saw all this occur, the Kashgaris turned on him
and abused him roundly for insulting a guest like this, and
Digitized by
Google
28o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xii.
the rest of the Kirghiz, taking the cue from them, set upon
the unfortunate Juma and beat him.
The other two Kirghiz headmen then came and apologized
profusely to me, hoping that I was not displeased with them
also, and the next morning, when we parted, they were very
friendly and full of expressions of good-will.
On November 8 we crossed the Mintaka Pass ; the ascent
for about a thousand feet is very steep, and near the top there
was a considerable amount of recently fallen snow. Snow,
indeed, was even now falling on the mountains all round
continuously, but during our passage it remained clear, and
though the snow was soft and we sank into it up to our knees,
yet the yaks carried the baggage over without much real
difficulty. The height is fourteen thousand four hundred feet,
though the mountains near it must rise to fully twenty-two
thousand feet. The descent is also steep, leading down a
rocky zigzag on to the moraine of a glacier ; but, after passing
over this for about a mile and a half, all difficulties are over,
and the route descends a stream to Murkush. Here we met
Kanjuti officials, sent by the chief to await our arrival, with
twenty coolies to carry my baggage, and I was therefore able
to despatch the Kirghiz with the yaks which had brought our
baggage over the pass.
But the Kirghiz are not a race with many good qualities ;
they are avaricious, grasping, and fickle, and I parted with
them without regret, or any special desire to renew my
acquaintance with them.
We were now safely on the southern side of the Indus
watershed once more, and our explorations were over, for
Colonel Lockhart's Mission, in 1886, had passed up the Hunza
valley on their way to the Kilik Pass. But this valley we
were now entering was full of interest, both as the abode of
a primitive, little-known people, and from the grandeur of its
scenery. As we marched down from Murkush, which was
Digitized by
Google
i889.] THE HUNZA ARBAP, 28t
merely a camping-ground, to Misgah, the first village, we
passed through gorges with rocky precipices of stupendous
height on either side. The mountains seemed to almost rise
perfectly sheer from the bed of the river for thousands of feet,,
till they culminated in snowy peaks, to view whose summit we
had to throw our heads right back in looking upwards.
As we descended the valley the air became warmer and
warmer, the marrow-freezing blasts of wind were left behind,^
and the atmosphere became less and less rarefied as we left
the high altitudes of the Pamirs and came down again to
parts where cereals could be cultivated. As we breathed the
fuller air, with more life-giving properties in it, fresh strength
seemed to come into us, and the feeling of languor which the
cold and the rarefaction of the air together had produced,
slowly disappeared.
Near Misgah we were met by the Arbap^ or governor, of
the upper district of Hunza, who professed himself very
friendly, and evidently intended to be so; but on the next
morning, when it came to producing men to carry our loads,
as the chief had said he would arrange to do, difficulties
immediately arose. The independent Kanjutis did not at all
like having to carry the loads, and I could quite sympathize
with them. Having to carry sixty or seventy pounds for a
dozen miles over any sort of country must be unpleasant
enough, but to have to do it over Hunza mountain-tracks
affords a very intelligible cause of complaint, and I can well
understand how galling these wild people of the Hindu Kush
must find our calls upon them to act as beasts of burden.
However, the call had to be made, whether I or they liked
it or not, and after a delay of half a day the necessary number
of men were produced.
Then arose another difficulty. The arbap, on the previous
evening, had sent me over a present of a sheep and some eggs,
and now he asked payment for them, saying he could not
Digitized by
Google
282 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
afford to give presents for nothing, I told him that our
<:ustoms were different from his, and that I was going to
follow out our own custom, which was to accept a present as
a present, and not pay for it These men of Hunza were a
<:uriously uncouth people in those days of their first contact
with Europeans. They thought they had a perfect right to
fleece any stranger who entered their country, and I had heard
from Captain Gombtchevsky of the demands they had made
upon him, and from the Kirghiz of how they practically robbed
the Chinese officials who occasionally visited the country.
By midday coolies and a few ponies were collected, and
a start was made for Gircha. The track was rough and difficult,
and in one or two places led along the sides of cliffs into
which planks had been fastened, and a rude gallery constructed
in this way. The valley was very narrow, and the mountains
bare, rugged, and precipitous. At Gircha was a small fort,
near which we bivouacked round a fire, waiting for the baggage,
^hich did not appear till six o'clock the next morning, as the
men had been benighted on the road, and dare not, laden as
they were, pass along the cliffs in the dark.
Here at Gircha we halted for a day, and were visited by
Wazir Dadu, the "prime minister" of the country, and
Mohammed Nazim Khan, the present ruler of Hunza, and a
half-brother of Safder AH, the then ruler. Wazir Dadu was
an interesting character, as he was afterwards the leader of
the opposition to the British in the Hunza campaign, which
took place two years after my visit At the close of my
journey I described him in the following terms: "The Wazir
is a handsome-looking man, with good features and a very
fine beard. He strikes one as being a clever, shrewd man, with
plenty of common sense about him ; and, from what I saw,
I should think he had considerable influence with the chief.
He is a keen sportsman and a good shot" Next to his half-
brother Humayun, the Wazir of the present ruler of Hunza,
Digitized by
Google
1889.] A STATE RECEPTION. 283
he was the most capable man I have met upon the frontier,
and one for whom I entertained a considerable respect on
account of his manly qualities ; and it is to be regretted that
ignorance led him into committing his master to a course of
policy which ended in the overthrow of both. Wazir Dadu
eventually died in imprisonment in Chinese Turkestan.
Now, however, on his visit to me, he appeared in gorgeous
robes, which had been presented to Ghazan Khan, the chief
of Hunza, at the time of Colonel Lockhart's visit, in 1886. He
brought very friendly messages from Safder Ali, and said he
had been sent to accompany my party down to Gulmit, where
the chief was at present residing. This place I reached two
days later. We passed a few small, dirty villages on the
way, and the valley opened out only very slightly, stupendous
mountains rising as before on either hand.
Hearing that Safder Ali wished to receive me in state on
my arrival at Gulmit, I put on my full-dress dragoon uniform,
and the Gurkha escort also wore their full dress. We had to
cross a nasty glacier at Pasu, and I did not find spurs and
gold-laced overalls very appropriate costume for that kind of
work. Then, as we neared Gulmit, a deputation was sent
by the chief to say that I must not be frightened when I
heard guns being fired, as they were intended for a salute,
and not offensively.
Amid the booming of these guns I rode up through the
village lands towards a large tent, in which the chief was to
receive me. Thirteen guns were fired as a salute, and when
they ceased a deafening tomtoming was set up. Hundreds
of people were collected on the hillside, and in front of the
tent were ranged two long rows of these wild-looking Kanjutis,
armed with matchlocks and swords. There was no fierce look
about these men, but they had a hardy appearance which
was very striking. At the end of this double row of men
I dismounted from my pony, and advanced between the lines
Digitized by
Google
284 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
to meet the chief, who came outside the tent to receive me.
I was astonished to find myself in the presence of a man
with a complexion of almost European fairness, and with
reddish hair. His features, too, were of an entirely European
cast, and, dressed in European clothes, he might anywhere have
been taken for a Greek or Italian, He was now dressed in
a magnificent brocade robe and a handsome turban, presented
by Colonel Lockhart He had a sword and revolver fastened
round his waist, and one man with a drawn sword and another
with a repeating rifle stood behind him.
He asked after my health, and as to how I had fared during-
my journey through his country, and then led me into the tent,
which was a big one presented to him by Captain Durand. At
the head of the tent was a chair covered with fine gold-
embroidered velvet cloth. This was the only chair the chief
possessed, or rather had in Gulmit, and it was evident that he
intended to sit in it himself, and let me kneel upon the ground
with the headmen of the country. I had, however, foreseen such
an eventuality, and had brought a chair with me on the march,
ahead of the baggage. So I now sidled in between Safder
Ali and his chair, and whispered to my orderly to get mine,
which, when produced, I placed alongside his, and we then sat
down together. We then carried on a short complimentary
conversation, in which I thanked him for the arrangements he
had made for my reception, and the cordiality of the welcome
he had offered me. In the tent all the principal men of the
country were kneeling in silent rows, with solemn upturned
faces, hanging upon each word that was uttered as if there was
the profoundest wisdom in it, but never moving a single muscle
of their features. The conversation was carried on through
two interpreters, and the compliments dragged themselves out
by slow degrees. At the close of the interview I again thanked
the chief, and as I left the tent the Gurkha escort, by previous
arrangement, fired three volleys in the air, a form of salute which
Digitized by
Google
1889.] A BUSINESS INTERVIEW. 285
is ordinarily only given at funerals, but which served the purpose
of making a noise and consequently of pleasing these people.
As there is nothing but small dirty houses at Gulmit, I lived
in a tent there, and on the day following my arrival paid another
visit to the chief. The first question he asked me was, why
I had entered his country from the north, when no other
European had ever done so. I told him that I could not claim
the honour of being the first European to enter his country
across the passes on the north, for it so happened that I had
just met a Russian officer who had himself informed me that
he had crossed into Hunza from the north. I then explained
to him that I had been sent by the Government of India to
inquire into the cause of the raids on the Yarkand trade route,
and was now returning to India through his country.
On the following morning, during a long visit Safder Ali
paid me in my tent, I entered upon this question rather more
fully. I reminded him that the raids were committed by his
subjects upon the subjects of the British Government, and if he
wished to retain the friendship of the British Government, as
he professed to do, he should restrain his subjects from carrying
on such practices. Safder Ali replied, in the most unabashed
manner, that he considered he had a perfect right to make raids ;
that the profits he obtained from them formed his principal
revenue, and that if the Government of India wished them
stopped, they must make up by a subsidy for the loss of revenue.
There was no diplomatic mincing of matters with Safder Ali,
and this outspokenness did not come from any innate strength
of character, but simply because he was entirely ignorant of his
real position in the universe. He was under the impression
that the Empress of India, the Czar of Russia, and the Emperor
of China were chiefs of neighbouring tribes ; but he had been
accustomed to levy blackmail upon all the peoples round him,
and he looked upon the various British officers who had visited
his country. Captain Grombtchevsky, and the Chinese official
Digitized by
Google
286 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
who occasionally came to Hunza, as envoys from England,
Russia, and China, clamouring for his friendship. He and
Alexander the Great were on a par. When I asked him if he
had ever been to India, he said that "great kings'* like himself
and Alexander never left their own country !
The difficulty was, therefore, to know how to deal with such
a man as this. I told him, however, that I could not think of
recommending that he should be subsidized to stop raids ; that
I had left some soldiers armed with rifles on the trade route,
and I would recommend him to try another raid and see how
much revenue he obtained from it The discussion, in fact,
became somewhat heated at one time ; but the effect was none
the worse for that, for these untutored people like to speak out
their minds freely, and it is a good plan to allow them to do so.
Safder Ali told me afterwards that he was astonished at my
having refused the request he had made ; for he said that all the
men he had to deal with would, at any rate at the time, promise
to do a thing asked of them, but they never said straight out
to his face that they would not do what was asked of them.
Thinking it necessary to impress him in any small way I
could with our strength, I now suggested to him that he should
see the Gurkhas perform some drill exercise and fire at a mark.
I accordingly had the men drawn up in line facing towards the
inside of the tent where Safder Ali and I were seated. They
then went through the movements of the firing exercise. One
of these exercises consisted in bringing the rifles up to the
present, and as the Gurkhas were facing the interior of the tent,
the muzzles of the rifles were directed straight on Safder Ali
and myself. This was too much for the successor of Alexander ;
he said he would see no more drill exercises, and he could only
be induced to permit firing at the mark to proceed when he
surrounded himself with one ring of men and placed another
cordon round the Gurkhas who were firing. A guilty conscience
was pricking him, for he had murdered his own father and
Digitized by
Google
1889.] AN UNDIGNIFIED RULER, 287
thrown two of his brothers over a precipice, and he now feared
that similar treachery might be played upon him, and that the
Gurkhas might despatch him with a bullet Under these
excessive precautions the practice proceeded, and volleys were
fired at objects far across the valley, the people being duly
impressed both by the excellence of the shooting and by the
sturdy character of the Gurkhas.
I had several interviews with Safder AH, but on one occasion
he was so rude that I had afterwards to tell the Wazir that I
could neither receive visits from him nor pay visits to him while
he spoke as he did. He caused me incessant annoyance, too,,
by sending down messengers to ask for various things in my
possession. I had given him a handsome present, but he would
send and ask me for my tent, my mule-trunks, and even some
soap for his wives. Among my presents to the Wazir had been
a few tablets of soap wrapped up in '* silver " paper ; these had
excited the admiration of the ladies of the " king's " household,,
and they wanted some for themselves. All these requests I
refused on principle, for if one thing had been given, more would
be demanded, and every article of my kit would be taken
from me. Of this Captain Grombtchevsky had good-naturedly
informed me, and he had warned me to be firm from the first
Balti coolies, to carry my baggage down to Gilgit, having
arrived, I left Gulmit on November 23. On the morning of
my departure, Safder Ali came down on foot to my tent and
apologized for any annoyance he had given me, saying his only
intention was to give me a suitable reception, and he wished
a subsidy from Government ! Safder Ali struck me as being a
weak character, and the opinion I recorded of him at the time
was that he was too childishly obstinate and too deficient in
shrewdness and far-sightedness to appreciate the advantages of
keeping on good terms with the British. I am the last European
who has seen him ; two years later he was forced to flee from
his country, and he is now an exile in Chinese territory,.
Digitized by
Google
288 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
while his half-brother, Mohammed Nazim, rules Hunza in his
place.
This same Mohammed Nazim was now deputed by Safder
Ali to accompany me as far as Gilgit On the day after leaving
Gulmit we reached Baltit, the chief place in Hunza, where the
chiefs palace and fort are situated. I now had to hurry through,
for winter was fast approaching, and as I was able three years
afterwards to make a stay in the country, I will describe it
more fully later on, and merely state here the opinion which I
formed, during my two weeks* journey through the country, that
" once the chief had been brought under control, there would be
little difficulty with the people, who are of a far less warlike
character than the Afghans, and would probably gladly welcome
a more settled state of affairs, in which they would not be
continually liable to be employed in petty wars got up between
rival chieftains." When, two years afterwards, Safder AH was
forced to flee from the country, the people showed no regret ;
and now, under Mohammed Nazim, a prince who understands
that the time for truculency is past, it is acknowledged by every
one who visits the country that these quondam-raiders are
become a settled and contented people.
Pushing on ahead of my escort, I passed through Nilt, to
which the next visitors were the gallant little force under
Colonel Durand, who, at the end of 1891, conquered Hunza and
Nagar. Two days from Baltit — after passing over sixty-five
miles of most execrable roads, by paths climbing high up the
mountain-sides to round clifTs or pass over rocks and boulders,
and by galleries along the face of a precipice — I reached Gilgit,
and was welcomed by Captain Durand and Lieutenant Manners-
Smith, who had a few weeks before arrived to establish a British
Political Agency there. To be once more free from anxiety,
to be among my brother officers, to sit down to a meal prepared
by some other than that most faithful of servants but worst of
all cooks, Shukar Ali, the Ladaki, and to feel that the task
Digitized by
Google
1889.] / PART WITH MV GURKHAS, 289
which had been set me had been successfully accomplished, was
satisfaction indeed, and that night of my arrival in the Gilgit
Agency was another of those times the recollection of which
is impressed indelibly upon my memory.
After staying a few days at Gilgit, we set out again for
Kashmir. The season was now late, and the Burzil Pass,
thirteen thousand four hundred feet, and the Tragbal Pass,
eleven thousand two hundred feet, had to be crossed. On
December 13 we crossed the former, and three days later we
descended from the Tragbal into the valley of Kashmir once
more. The round had been completed ; we had crossed seven-
teen passes, and attempted two more, and had travelled through
as rough a country as any that could be found. I now parted
with my Gurkha escort, and they told me for the first time that,
before leaving the regiment, their head native officer had told
them that if anything happened to me on the journey we were
to undertake, not a single one of them was to return to disgrace
the name of the regiment to which he belonged. They must
not come back without their officer. The Gurkha havildar, as
he told me this, said they had all been ready to make any
sacrifice for the success of the expedition ; but they had had no
hardship whatever, and he thanked me for all the care I had
taken of them during the journey. These Gurkhas were splendid
little men ; I felt all through that I could have trusted them in
anything, and it was hard to part with men who had been ready
to lay down their lives for me at any moment, who were my
only companions for many months together, and for whom I
had come to feel so strong a personal attachment.
They returned to their regiment ; the havildar and the naik
were promoted, and they all received substantial money rewards
and a certificate of commendation from the Government of
India.
The Pathan orderly also returned to his regiment, where he
was promoted, and received a money reward and a similar
U
Digitized by
Google
290 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xii.
certificate, which was presented to him, at a parade of the whole
regiment, by his commanding officer.
This was the first occasion on which I had had under me
men of the native army of India, and my respect for their
endurance, their devotion and loyalty, and discipline, was
founded then, and has only increased as I have had the
opportunity of knowing them better. Gurkhas, Pathans, or
Sikhs, they are all ready to stand by a British officer to the last
and they are men of whom any leader might be proud.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER XIII.
TO THE PAMIRS— 1890.
These explorations, in 1889, had extended on to the edge of the
Pamirs, and in the following year I was commissioned to travel
round the whole of the Pamir region. At that time, though
Russian parties had frequently toured through them, only one
Englishman, Mr. Ney EHas, had travelled across the Pamirs
since the time of Forsyth's Mission, when Colonel T. E. Gordon
led an expedition through the Little and back by the Great
Pamir. This was in the time of Yakoob Beg, before the Chinese
had re-established themselves in Eastern Turkestan, and since
then the state of affairs had very materially altered. The
Pamirs form a sort of no-man's-land between the British de-
pendencies on the south, the Russian on the north, the Chinese
on the east, and the Afghan on the west The waves of
conquest which surged all round had not yet thoroughly im-
mersed them, and the state of this meeting-place of the three
great empires of Asia was, therefore, of interest and importance.
At the end of June, 1890, I left Simla for this remote region.
No escort accompanied me, as on my former journey, but I
was fortunate enough to have as a companion Mr. George
Macartney, a son of Sir Halliday Macartney, the well-known
Secretary of the Chinese Legation in London. Mr. Macartney
spoke Chinese fluently and accurately, and his services as an
interpreter would therefore be of the greatest value. Together
we proceeded to Leh, and joined there two other travellers
Digitized by
Google
292 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiii.
Messrs. Beech and Lennard, who were, for sporting purposes,
also proceeding to the Pamirs and Chinese Turkestan. I again
had to make those long dreary marches across the Karakoram
Mountains which I have already described. It would be
difficult to imagine anything more utterly desolate and de-
pressing than these bare plains and rounded hills, and it was
accordingly with an immense feeling of relief that we descended
into the plains of Turkestan at the end of our six hundred
miles' march through the mountains from the plains of India.
On the last day of August we reached Yarkand, which, it is
needless to say, showed no signs of change since my visit to
it three years before. It is doubtful, indeed, whether these
Central Asian towns ever change. Their dull mud walls, mud
houses, mud mosques, look as if they would remain the same
for ever. In most climates they would, of course, be washed
away, but in Central Asia there is hardly any rain, and they
remain on for ages. There are a few well-built brick mosques
and some good houses. The Chinese, too, in their separate
town, have substantial buildings ; but the native town leaves
a general impression of mud-built houses and sleepy, drowsy
changelessness. " As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever
shall be," would be a particularly appropriate motto to place
over the gateway of a Central Asian town.
A few days after we had reached Yarkand, Captain
Grombtchevsky, whom I had met in the previous year, also
arrived there. I was going over to visit him, when he sent
a message insisting upon calling upon me first, and shortly
afterwards he appeared, dressed in uniform, with his decorations
on. It was a great pleasure to me to meet him again, and to
hear from him an account of his wanderings since we had
parted near the borders of Hunza nearly a year ago. He had
had a trying time since then, and must have suffered consider-
able hardships, for he had attempted the Karakoram Pass in
the middle of December, and then passed on eastward to the
Digitized by
Google
1890.] " THE ROOF OF THE WORLD?' 293
edge of the high Tibetan tableland in the depth of winter.
When I recall how inadequately he and his party were supplied
with camp equipage, and how roughly altogether they were
travelling, I cannot help admiring the stolid perseverance of
this Russian explorer in ever attempting the task he did.
Captain Grombtchevsky dined with us, and we dined with
him, and then we all dined with one of the principal merchants
of the place. This last dinner was an event in Yarkand, and
it is curious to think of a Russian and an English officer dining
with a Turki merchant midway between the Russian and Indian
Empires in the heart of Central Asia. The dinner was given
in a house in the native city, and was a very sumptuous repast ;
•course after course of stews, pillaos, and roast meat were served
up, and the old merchant was profuse in his hospitality.
Grombtchevsky, after spending a few days in Yarkand,
went off into the mountains to the westward, to work his
way homeward to Russia through some new ground ; and on
September 15 Macartney and I also left Yarkand on our way
to the Pamirs ; while our companions, Beech and Lennard
remained on for a time, and then went eastward to shoot in
the jungles of the Yarkand River.
The Pamirs are now a well-known region, and much has
recently been heard about them, but at the time of our visit
there was still a remnant of the mysterious attaching to them,
and we set out with a good deal of enthusiasm to visit the Roof
of the World. We had first to make for Tashkurgan, the
principal place of Sarikol, and to reach there we had to cross
ridge after ridge of the outlying spurs of the range which forms
the buttress to the Pamirs. Here and there we passed a small
village, but the country was mostly uninhabited, and the hills
bare and uninteresting. By the end of September we reached
Tashkurgan, and were on the borders of the Pamirs. Tash-
kurgan looks an important place, as it is marked in capital
letters on most maps, but it is in reality merely a small fort
Digitized by
Google
294 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiii.
built at the entrance to the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir. There are
several small hamlets near it; but, being ten thousand feet
above the sea, cultivation is, of course, not very productive, and
the district can therefore support only a small population.
Above Tashkurgan is seen the wide Pamir of the Tagh-
dum-bash, down which I had ridden to this place on the previous
year, and overhanging it on the west was a rugged range of
snowy peaks, which part the waters of Asia, those on the west
flowing into the Oxus, and destined to mark the dividing-line
between spheres of influence of two great empires, and those to
the east flowing into the Yarkand River, and ending their career
in Lob Nor. Behind this range were the chief Pamirs — the Little,
the Great, and the Alichur Pamirs — which it was now our special
object to visit
On October 3 we left Tashkurgan to ascend the gorge which
leads up to the Neza-tash Pass. The way was rough and stony,
and the last part of the ascent steep, but we took our ponies
over without any serious difficulty, and from the other side
of the pass looked down upon a succession of bare, rounded,
uninteresting spurs and barren valleys running towards the
Little Pamir. After descending one of these, we found our-
selves on what might almost be called a plain ; it was flat and
level, four or five miles broad, and extended for many miles
on either hand, till the border of the mountain ranges hid it
from view. This was the Little Pamir. On the side by which
we had entered it, it was bounded by high snow-clad mountains,
but opposite us were low rounded spurs, hardly high enough
to be dignified with the name of mountains or to be covered
with permanent snow.
The other Pamirs which we visited differed but very slightly,
so that some detailed description of this one will suffice. We
have, then, a level plain bounded by ranges of mountains of
varying height on either side ; and perhaps the best idea of what
this is like will be gathered from an account of how it is
Digitized by
Google
i890.] FORMATION OF PAMIRS. 295
formed. We must therefore look back some hundreds of
thousands of years, to the time when these mountains were first
upheaved. Whether that upheaval was sudden, as Sir Henry
Howorth supposes, or gradual, as seems to be generally the
case in the formation of mountains, there would in either case
be clefts and hollows between the unevennesses which formed
the various ranges of the mountain chain. Snow would fall in
the upper parts, collect in masses in the hollows, and gradually
form into glaciers. Then these glaciers, each with its burden
of dibris of rocks and stone from the mountain-sides, would
come creeping down and gradually fill up the bottoms of the
valleys parting the various ranges. In former times, on these
Pamirs, glaciers descended much lower than they do now, and
in all parts of them the moraines of old glaciers may be seen
down in the valley bottoms to which no glaciers now descend.
All these Pamirs were therefore in former times filled with
vast glaciers, and as the ice of them melted away the stony
detritus remained and formed the plains which are seen at the
present day. If the rainfall were more abundant, this detritus
would of course be washed out by the river flowing through
the valley; but in these lofty regions, where the very lowest
part of the valleys is over twelve thousand feet above sea-level,
the rivers are frozen for the greater part of the year, they are
unable to do the work that is required of them, and th valleys
remain choked up with the old glacier-borne debris of bygone
ages. Lower down, however, in the states of Wakhan, Shignans
and Roshan, where the rivers have reached a level low enough
to remain unfrozen for a time sufficiently long to carry out their
duties properly, the valleys have been cleared out, the Pamir
country has disappeared, and in place of the broad flat valley
bottom, we see deep-cut gorges and narrow defiles.
I hope this description will have enabled my readers to
understand that the Pamirs do not form a high plateau or
tableland, as has often been supposed, but a series of valleys of
Digitized by
Google
296 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiii.
a type common in very elevated regions where the winter is
long and the rainfall in summer small, but not elsewhere.
Tibet is a collection of Pamirs on a large scale, for there, too,
there is not sufficient water to wash out the valleys down to
their bottoms, and in many parts of the Himalayas, the Kara-
koram Mountains, and the Hindu Kush, where similar conditions
exist, there are regular pamirs. And by this time the reader
will have gathered that the word "pamir" is merely the distinctive
name of this particular kind of valley. The Shimshal Pass into
Hunza is called by the people of that country the Shimshal
Pamir, though it is far away from the regions which we mark
on our maps as " The Pamirs."
This, then, is the physical formation of the Pamirs. Of
their outward clothing many conflicting accounts have been
given. One traveller, going to them in the late autumn, when
everything living has been nipped by frost, says that they are
an utterly desolate region. Another, seeing portions of them in
the summer, says that they are covered with the most splendid
grass. My own experience was that, though grass of a close,
good quality was to be found in certain places, the greater part
of the valley bottoms is covered with coarse wormwood scrub
only. Patches of rich pasture are to be found here and there, but
no one must imagine rolling grassy plains on the Pamirs. This
is what I had expected, and I thought the ponies of my caravan
would have an abundance of rich pasture to graze on ; but I was
sadly disappointed to find that only in a few favoured spots
could they obtain this, and that, for the greater part of the way
they had to content themselves with picking about among
scrub.
Trees, of course, are never seen, and even shrubs and bushes
in a few places only. Consequently fuel is scarce, and the
inhabitants and travellers have to content themselves with the
roots of the wormwood.
The climate, as might be imagined, is very severe. I have
Digitized by
Google
I890-] LITTLE PAMIR AND AUCHUR PAMIR. 297
only been there in the late summer and early autumn ; but I
found ice in the basin inside my tent in August, the thermo-
meter at zero (Fahrenheit) by the end of September, and eighteen
degrees below zero at the end of October. Lord Dunmore
found his thermometer at five degrees below zero inside his tent
in November. Strong winds, too, are very frequent, and in-
crease the discomfort arising from the cold very considerably,
and this is further augmented by the lassitude and weakness
brought on by the elevation. So that the cold, the winds, and
the elevation together, render life on the Pamirs anything but
cheering.
In spite of this severity of the climate, however, the in-
habitants of the Pamirs remain there the whole year round.
They are almost entirely Kirghiz, with a few refugees from
Wakhan. These Kirghiz are a rough, hardy race, as they must
necessarily be ; but they have little character, and no aptitude
for fighting. They are avaricious and indolent, and possess few
qualities which would attract a stranger to them. They live in
the same felt tents which I have already described in the
account of my journey from Peking.
At Aktash we found three or four tents and a " beg '* or
headman appointed by the Chinese. He was very civil to us,
and made no difficulties whatever about our proceeding round the
Pamirs, which at that time were considered Chinese territory.
We accordingly struck off almost due west across the range on
the western side of the Little Pamir to the valley of Istigh
River. In all this eastern part of the Pamirs the mountain
ranges are low and easily crossed. No snow-peaks, like those
to the west of the Victoria Lake, or the Lake of the Little
Pamir, are to be seen. They appear to have all been worn down
and rounded off. We had no difficulty, therefore, in crossing
first into the valley of the Istigh, and then from there to Chadir
Tash, on the Alichur Pamir. On the way there, at a place
called Ak-chak tash, we found some hot springs, the temperature
Digitized by
Google
298 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiii.
of which exceeded one hundred and forty degrees, the highest
point to which my thermometer reached. The occurrence of
these hot springs is not at all infrequent in these parts.
In the Ash-kuman, Yarkhun, and Lutku valleys of Chitral
there are similar springs, which are much used by the people,
and are believed by them to contain valuable medicinal
properties.
At one spot before reaching the Alichur Pamir, I counted
seventy Ovis poll horns within a quarter of a mile. This, of
course, was an unusually large number to meet with, but every-
where on the Pamirs these fine horns are seen lying about the
valleys and hillsides. The Pamirs, as is well known, are the
home of these magnificent Ovis poll sheep, as big as donkeys,
with horns measuring frequently sixty inches, and in one known
case seventy-three inches, round the curve. The animal stands
over twelve hands in height, and the weight of the head alone,
even when skinned, is over forty pounds.
The Alichur Pamir we found to be an open valley, from
four to five miles in width, and bounded on either side by
barren brown hills. At the time of our visit, grass at the head
of the valley was very scanty ; but lower down towards Yeshil-
kul there were some good pasturages, and a few Kirghiz
encamped by them. It was now our intention to visit a spot
which has since become historic, and indeed was already
historic, though its name had not before been known to the
European world. This was Somatash. Mr. Ney Elias, who
had travelled in this, as he has in almost every other part of
Asia, though the record of most of his travels has never been
published, had heard rumours of the existence of a stone
monument with an inscription on it erected on the shores of
Lake Yeshil-kul (or Lake Yeshil, as one ought really to call it,
the word kul itself meaning "lake"). My Kirghiz friends
corroborated these rumours, and Macartney and I rode oflf
from Bash Gumbaz to have a look at the stone. We had a
Digitized by
Google
1890.] INSCRIBED STONE AT BASH GUMBAZ, 299
long day*s ride, passing by several small lakes in the hollows of
the moraines of ancient glaciers, and at night we halted just at
the point where the Alichur River enters the Yeshil-kul. Our
baggage, including our bedding and cooking things, was brought
on more slowly, and we spent the night cold and hungry in a
yurt, which had been sent on for us, but we were delighted
the next morning to find the stone. It was the broken remains
of a large tablet mounted on a pedestal, and placed about a
hundred feet or more above the river, on its right bank, a few
hundred yards before it 6owed into the lake. The inscription
was in Chinese, Manchu, and Turki, and evidently referred to the
expulsion of the Khojas in 1759, and the pursuit of them by the
Chinese to the Badakhshan frontier. Above this ancient monu-
ment, on the left bank, was a ruined Chinese fort, built many
years before.
The place is of historic interest, as it is the scene of the
conflict between the Russians and the Afghans in 1892. An
account of this has been given by Lord Dunmore, who visited
the spot only a few weeks after the event, and found the dead
bodies of the Afghans lying there. The Afghans appear to
have sent a small outpost of about fifteen men to this place.
A Russian party, under Colonel Yonoff, making its annual
promenade of the Pamirs, came up to them, fired on them, and
killed every single man.
After taking a rubbing of the inscription on the monument,
which has, by the way, been since removed by the Russians
and placed in the museum at Tashkent, we rode back to
Buzilla Jai, and the following day retraced our steps up the
Alichur Pamir. I do not think there is anything special to
record about this Pamir. It is of exactly the same description
as all the rest. The principal routes leading to it are : (i) that
leading right along it from the valley of the Aksu River to
Shignan ; (2) that from Sarez on the west by the Marjunai Pass,
a somewhat difficult one, which has, however, repeatedly been
Digitized by
Google
300 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xiii.
crossed by Russian military parties ; (3) by the Bash Gumbaz
and Khargosh Passes — both practicable for ponies to the Great
Pamir ; and (4) that by the Kokbai Pass to Shakhdarra. All
these passes have been crossed and recrossed repeatedly by
Russian military parties. They are most of them between
fourteen thousand and fifteen thousand feet in height, and
consequently about two thousand feet above the valley bottom.
The Neza-tash Pass, which we now crossed on our way
eastward to the valley of the Aksu, is about fourteen thousand
two hundred feet in height, and on the west side is very easy
of ascent. The descent is more difficult, and is steep and
stony. It led us down the Karasu stream to the Aksu River,
just before that enters the gorges which henceforth confine it
At the point where we struck it the valley was flat, and
more than a mile in width, and covered with good grass, and
I was informed by the Kirghiz with me that this spot was
called Sarez. It must be distinguished from the Sarez a
little lower down, but this is probably the part which the
** Sarez Pamir " marked on so many maps is meant to indicate.
It might be said to extend from the vicinity of the mouth
of the Karasu stream to near the junction of the Ak-baital
with the Aksu.
At this latter point, on the right bank of the Aksu, is
Murghabi. At the time of my visit there was nothing here
but four or five Kirghiz tents among the pasturages by the
river, and some old tombs on the high ground above, but
there is now a Russian outpost permanently established. It
is a dreary, desolate spot, twelve thousand four hundred
feet above sea-level, with a certain amount of grassy pasture
and a few scrubby bushes by the river, but surrounded by
barren hills, and bitterly cold. How these Russian soldiers
can support existence there is a marvel, but they can hardly
do so without frequent relief. I can well imagine the joy it
must be to them to return to more genial quarters. One can
Digitized by
Google
1890.] THE LAMP ROCK, 301
imagine that they must often long, also, to push on down to
more hospitable regions in front of them. An officer shut up
in these dreary quarters, with nothing whatever to do — week
after week and month after month passing by in dull monotony
only the same barren hills to look at, the same stroll about
the fort to be taken — must long to go on, " What's the good
of staying here?" one can imagine his saying. "Why don't
Government send us on to a proper place, a place worth
having?" It is only human nature that he should wish so,
and when he is in this frame of mind it obviously requires
a very little inducement to move him on, and a pretty tight
rein from behind to keep him still.
However, at the time of my visit to Murghabi, no Russian
soldier had yet suffered exile in that spot. We only found
a few Kirghiz, and after spending a night there, we pushed on
up the course of the Ak-baital (White Mare) River to Rang-kul.
The Ak-baital now, at the end of October, had no water in it.
The valley was two or three miles broad and very barren.
No water was to be found nearer than Rang-kul, so we had
to make a long march of it to that place. We kept along the
shores of the lake for several miles, and on the way passed
an interesting rock called the Chiragh-tash, or Lamp Rock.
It stands out over the lake at the end of a spur, and at its
summit is a cave with what the native thought was a perpetual
light burning in it. This light was variously reported to come
from either the eye of a dragon, or from a jewel placed in its
forehead. On coming up to this rock I asked to be shown
the light, and there, sure enough, was a cave, in the roof of
which was a faint white light, which had the appearance of
being caused by some phosphorescent substance. I asked
if any one had ever been up to the cave to see what was
inside in it, but the Kirghiz said that no one would dare to
do so. I fancy, however, that laziness and indifference, quite
as much as fear, was the cause of their never having ascended
Digitized by
Google
302 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiu.
to the cave, for Orientals seldom have any curiosity to discover
the reason of phenomena. I was more curious, so I ascended
the spur with my Pathan servant, and, reaching the rock,
clambered up that, the last twenty feet in cat-like fashion,
without boots, and clinging on with toes and fingers only;
for the rock, just for that final bit, was almost perpendicular.
We entered the mouth of the cave. I looked eagerly round
to discover the source of the light, and, when I had got fairly
on my legs, found that the cave was simply a hole right
through the rock, and that the light came in from the other
side. From below, of course, this cannot be seen, for the
observer merely sees the top of the cave, and this, being
covered with some white deposit, reflects back the light
which has come in from the opening on the other side. This,
then, was the secret of the Cave of Perpetual Light, which
I am told is mentioned in histories many hundreds of
years old.
We encamped that night by a few Kirghiz yurts, in an
extensive grassy plain to the east of Rang-kul, and away at
the end of the plain could be seen the magnificent snow mass
of the Mustagh-ata, the Father of Mountains, twenty-five
thousand feet in height.
The ordinary route to Kashgar, to which place we were
now making, leads on eastward from Rang-kul over the
Ak-berdi Pass, and down the Gez River. But I was anxious
to visit the Great Kara-kul Lake, so I pushed northward
through the depressingly barren hills which bound the Rang-kul
Lake, and encamped the first night at the foot of the Kizil Jek
Pass. Up till now we had been fortunate enough always to
have yurts put up for us at each halting-place, and these
thick felt-walled tents, with a fire inside them, can be made
really very comfortably warm. At any rate, you have the fire,
and can warm yourself thoroughly when you want to. But
a thin canvas tent, in which a fire cannot be lighted, is a
Digitized by
Google
189a] KARA'KUL. 303
very different thing, and henceforward we had it piercingly
cold. All the country between Rang-kul and Kara-kul is
barren in the extreme. Cold wind used to rush down the
valleys, and the night before we crossed the Kizil Jek Pass
the thermometer fell to eighteen degrees below zero Fahrenheit
— just fifty degrees of frost
The Kizil Jek was quite an easy pass — merely a steep
rise up one valley, over a saddle, and down another. On the
northern side we found the country as inhospitable as it had
been on the southern, and on the day after crossing the pass
we encamped in a barren plain on the shores of the Great
Kara-kul. This is a fine lake more than a dozen miles in
length, and the day on which we reached it it presented a
magnificent spectacle. A terrific wind was blowing, lashing
the water into waves till the whole was a mass of foam. Heavy
snow-clouds were scudding across the scene, and through them,
beyond the tossing lake, could be seen dark rocky masses ;
and high above all this turmoil below, appeared the majestic
Peak Kaufmann, twenty- three thousand feet in height
I boiled my thermometer very carefully, to ascertain the
difference of level between the Rang-kul and this lake, and then
we turned off sharp to the eastward, to hurry down to the
warmer regions of Kashgar. Winter was fast coming on. and
we required little inducement to push rapidly on to the plains.
We crossed out of the basin of the Kara-kul by the Kara-art
Pass, fifteen thousand eight hundred feet It is well known that
the lake has no exit No water flows out from it. There
is very little indeed that flows into it, and it can well be kept
at its present level by evaporation only. But there are evident
signs all round the lake that in former times it reached a much
higher level than it does at present. On the other hand, the
Kara-art Pass may have been lower; for the neck which
forms the pass is composed of old moraine and dibris^ which
might have accumulated after the lake had fallen. There is a
Digitized by
Google
304 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiii.
possibility, therefore, that in former times the waters of the lake
may have flowed out over where the Kara-art Pass is now.
Following down the bed of the Kara-art stream, on the
northern side of the pass, through nigged, bare mountains, we
struck the Markan-su, followed that river for one march, and
then, turning off eastward, passed along the spurs which form
the northern declivity of the buttress range of the Pamirs to
Opal. We were off the high ground now; the climate was
milder, and both in the valley of the Markan-su and along these
spurs patches of jungle were seen, and dwarf pine on the
hillsides.
At Opal we were again in the plains of Turkestan, and on
November i reached Kashgar, where my official duties kept
me for the winter.
We were to make Kashgar our winter quarters, and we found
a native house prepared for us on the north side of the old city.
It was pleasantly situated on some rising ground, and looked
out to the north over the cultivated and tree-covered plain
round Kashgar to the snowy peaks of the Tian-shan. From
far away on the east, round to the north, and then away again
on the east, these snowy mountains extended ; and from the
roof of our house we could see that magnificent peak, the
Mustagh-ata, rising twenty-one thousand feet above the plain.
About the house was a garden, which gave us seclusion, and in
this garden I had pitched a Kirghiz yurt, which I had bought
on the Pamirs. One night up there we had found an unusually
large and very tastefully furnished, yurt provided for us. It
was quite new, was twenty feet in diameter, and about four-
teen feet high in the centre, with walls six feet high all round
But what surprised us most was to find it most elegantly
decorated. The walls were made of a very handsome screen-
work, and round the inside of the dome-like roof were dados
of fine carpeting and embroidery. I was so taken with this
tent, that I persuaded the owner to sell it to me, and carried it
Digitized by
Google
1890.] WINTER QUARTERS. 305
off to Kashgar on a couple of camels, and lived in it the whole
winter. With good carpets oh the ground, and a stove to warm
it, it made a very comfortable place to live in, and, personally,
I preferred it to a house.
This tent I found ready pitched on my arrival in Kashgar,
and it was very delightful to feel myself comfortably settled
down again after our rough and constant travelling. It was
curious, too, to note the change from the lonely mountains to
this populous town. On the Pamirs at night all had been as
still as death, but here we -felt the town beside us; the great
gongs of the Chinese guard-houses beat the hours through the
night, and at nine o'clock a gun was fired and trumpets were
blown. The Chinese are always good at effect, however bad
they may be in practice ; and as, in countries like Turkestan, a
good deal may be done by effect alone, I think this noisy parade
of watchfulness must make no small impression on the people.
The deep booming of the gongs through the stillness of the
night, the blaring of the trumpets, and the noise of the cannon,
nightly remind the inhabitants of these towns of Turkestan that
the conquerors, who have returned again and again to the
country, are still among them and still on the watch.
The day following our arrival, we called on M. Petrovsky,
the Russian consul, whom I had met here, in 1887, on my way
to India from Peking. He and Madame Petrovsky, their son,
M. Lutsch the secretary, and a Cossack officer in command of
the escort, made up a very pleasant little Russian colony here
in Kashgar, and it was a comfort to think that during the
winter we should not be thrown entirely upon our own resources,
but would have the advantage of intercourse with other
Europeans.
Digitized by
Google
3o6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiv.
CHAPTER XIV.
A WINTER IN KASHGAR.
During the first days of our stay in Kashgar, we had a
round of visits to make on Chinese officials. Kashgar is the
principal town of the western part of Chinese Turkestan, and
there is here a Taotai in civil charge of the Kashgar, Yarkand,
and Khotan districts, as well as of the Kirghiz along the frontier.
There is also, at Kashgar, a general in command of the troops
in these districts, who lives in the new town, about two and
a half miles to the south of the old town of Kashgar, in
which the Taotai lives. Of these two functionaries, the civil
governor is the most important, and he is surrounded with a
good deal of state. His official residence is of the usual Chinese
type, with fine rooms and courtyards, and the massive gateways
so characteristic of these places. Here he receives visitors of
distinction with considerable ceremony ; but it is when he goes
out that he appears in greatest pomp. Then men with gongs
and trumpets go in front, a large procession is formed, and both
on leaving and returning to his residence a salute is fired. He
is carried along in a handsome sedan chair, and every sign of
respect is paid to him. Here again the Chinese show their
skill in the art of impressing those they govern, for the sight —
not too common — of their governor parading through the streets
of the city in this ceremonial manner undoubtedly has its effect
I do not say that this ruling by effect is a good way of ruling,
and as a good deal of the effect is obtained by keeping the
Digitized by
Google
1890.] THE TAOTAL 307
rulers aloof and inaccessible, it is in that respect bad. But in
this particular line of governing the Chinese certainly are at the
top of the tree.
The Taotai and I performed the usual civilities to each
other. I called on him first, of course, and he returned my visit,
accompanied by his usual procession. The visits of Chinese
officials are always of considerable length, and the Taotai would
remain for a couple of hours or so talking away upon any
subject which cropped up. He was an old man, who had done
much good service in Chinese Turkestan during the Mohammedan
rebellion, but he was now weak and past his best When we
had become more intimate, he told me that he had no very high,
idea of European civilization, for we were always fighting with
one another. We were not bad at inventing machines and
guns, but we had none of that calm, lofty spirit which the
Chinese possessed, and which enabled them to look at the
petty squabbles between nations with equanimity and dignity.
We spent all our time in matters which should only concern
mechanics and low-class people of that sort, and gave ourselves
no opportunity for contemplating higher things. These were
the Taotai's ideas on Europeans, and it was interesting to see
the calm air of superiority with which these views were given.
The Taotai's secretary — a thorough scamp, who was subse-
quently removed for gross bribery — was another official with
whom we had a good deal of intercourse at Kashgar. He had
been at Shanghai, and had some knowledge of Europeans. He
used to say that the Chinese could never understand why the
Russians went to all the trouble and expense of keeping a
consulate at Kashgar to look after the trade there, when in
a whole year only as much merchandise was brought into the
country as is imported into Shanghai by a single British
steamer.
The official, however, whom we came to know the best, was
the general in command of the troops quartered in the old or
Digitized by
Google
3o8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiv.
native city, near which our house was situated. Old General
Wang was very friendly, and used to get up dinner-parties
for us in his barracks, and insisted upon calling me by my
Christian name. Like all Chinese military officials, he was
very indifferently educated, and having learnt the art of writing
long scrolls with quotations from classics, he was very proud
of it. The barracks in which his men lived were really ex-
tremely comfortable. Chinamen — at any rate the inhabitants
of North China — seldom live in squalor, and these barracks
were well constructed, roomy, and comfortable. The officers*
houses were really very neat The only things that were
badly looked after were the arms. The Chinese never can
look after their guns and rifles properly ; and although there
were many good breech-loading rifles in the hands of these
men, they would probably be perfectly useless on account of
the rust. I think what chiefly struck me about the arrange-
ments of these barracks was the family-party air which per-
vaded the whole. Here was the comfortable old general, only
bent on taking things as easily as possible, and the officers and
men appeared to be merely there to attend to his wants. They
had to look after him a little, and hang about him generally ;
but they might be quite sure that he would not trouble them
with any excess of military zeal, and they might go on leading
a quiet, peaceful existence till their turn for command came
round. The men worked hard at their vegetable gardens
outside the barracks, and we had opportunities of testing the
excellent quality of the vegetables which they turned out;
but drill and rifle-practice were very seldom carried on. As
far as our personal comfort was concerned, this was lucky, for
one day when rifle-practice was going on, I had just turned
the corner of a wall when a bullet came whizzing close by my
head ; the troops were at rifle-practice, and firing right across
a public way, without taking any precaution to warn people.
But my intercourse at Kashgar was not only with the
Digitized by
Google
1890-91.] COSMOPOLITAN KASHGAR. 309
Chinese ; I also saw there men from nearly every part of
Asia. It is a curious meeting-ground of many nationalities
from north and south, and from east and west of Asia ; from
Russian territory and from India, from China, and from
Afghanistan and Bokhara, even men from Constantinople.
With all of these I had from time to time opportunities of
speaking. Ethnologically they differed greatly, but they were
all Asiatics, and nearly all traders, and their general character-
istics, in consequence, varied but little. The effect of Central
Asian listlessness had made itself felt on all. The wild
fanatical Pathan from the Indian frontier allowed his ardour to
cool down here till he became almost as mild as the comfortable
merchant from Bokhara. All were intelligent men who, in
their wanderings, had picked up much useful knowledge ; and
as a rule the constant rubbing up against their neighbours had
produced good manners in them. They were seldom anything
else but courteous, if they knew that courtesy would be shown
to them, and a visit from any of them was always a pleasure.
They discussed politics constantly, as their trade depended so
much upon the political situation ; and the man in all Asia
whom they watched with the keenest interest was Abdul
Rahman, the Amir of Kabul. On him and on his life so much
of their little fortunes depended. He was credited with bound-
less ambitions. At one time he was to attack the Chinese in
Kashgar, and turn them out; at another he was to invade
Bokhara ; and four times during our stay in Kashgar he was
dead altogether. These Central Asian traders speculate freely
on what is to happen when he dies. If a son of his is to rule
in his stead, then Afghanistan will remain as much closed for
them as it is now, and the trade of Central Asia will be
strangled as before by the -prohibitive tariffs, and other obstacles
to it which are imposed by the ruler of Kabul. But if
Afghanistan is swept away as an independent state, and the
Russian and Indian frontiers coincide either on the Hindu
Digitized by
Google
3IO THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xiv.
Kush Mountains or the river Oxus, then trade will increase,
railways and good roads will be constructed, and oppression
by petty officials be unknown. The Central Asian question is
therefore one of great interest to them ; every move in the
game is watched with keenness, and the relative strength and
probable intentions of the two great powers, whom they r^ard
as struggling for the supremacy of Asia, are freely discussed
by them.
It is naturally difficult for an Englishman to get at their
real opinions as to the respective merits of British and Russian
rule; but, as merchants, I think they highly appreciate the
benefits which are conferred by an administration which makes
such efforts to improve the communications of the country, by
the construction of railways, roads, and telegraphs ; which adds
so greatly to the production of the country by the cutting of
irrigation canals ; and which encourages trade by removing all
duties that are not absolutely necessary, as the British da
They hate the system of law in India, though they believe in
the justice of the individual officer, and I am not altogether
sure that they do not prefer administrations where the decision
of law may be less just, but will probably be less costly, and
will certainly be more rapid. But they consider that, on the
whole, their trade interests are furthered more under British
than under any other rula
In regard, however, to the comparative strength of the two
rival powers of Asia, there is not a doubt that they consider
the Russian more powerful than the British. Even if they
have not really got the greater strength, the Russians succeed
better in producing an impression of it than do the British.
Their numbers in Central Asia are really very small, but they
are much more numerous in proportion to the number of
natives than are the British in India. Then, again, the Russians,
when they strike, strike very heavily ; and when they advance
they do not go back, as the British generally find some plausible
Digitized by
Google
1890-91.] BRITISH AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE. 311
reason for doing. Moreover, they have subjugated people
who were easy to conquer, and the general result of all this,
and of the rumours of untold legions of soldiers stationed in
Russia proper, is to impress the Oriental mind with the idea
that the Russians have a greater strengfth in comparison with
the British than they perhaps actually have. Some English
writers argue that the retirement from Afghanistan, in 1881, has
had no effect upon British prestige. That retirement may have
been wise on financial grounds, but that it did effect our prestige
in Central Asia there can, I think, be little doubt If we had
gone to Kabul and Kandahar, and remained there, our prestige,
for whatever it is worth, would certainly have stood higher than
it does now, when it is perfectly well known throughout Asia
that the Amir of Kabul practically closes Afghanistan to every
Englishman. To keep up this prestige may not have been
worth the money which it would have been necessary to expend
in order to do so, but it is false to argue that the prestige is
just as high after retirement as it was before. We cannot save
up our money and expect the same results as if we had expended
it. The shrewd native observers of our policy in Central Asia
see perfectly well that we did not hold Afghanistan, because we
had not sufficient men to do so. The Russians, chiefly because
they have only had very unwarlike people to conquer, have
never yet in Central Asia been put in the position of having
to withdraw after a conquest
Among other interesting features of my stay in Kashgar
were my conversations with M. Petrovsky. He was a man
with a large knowledge of the world, who had lived many
years in St Petersburg, as well as in Russian Turkestan and
Kashgar. He had read largely on subjects connected with
India and Central Asia ; he had a number of our best books
and Parliamentary Reports, and, like all Russians, he talked
very freely, and, on subjects not connected with local politics,
in which of course we were both concerned, very openly.
Digitized by
Google
312 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xiv.
Hence I had an opportunity of seeing ourselves as others
see us.
M. Petrovsky had read the report of the Sweating Com-
mittee, our Factory Legislation Reports, accounts in our news-
papers of the strikes which continually occur. All this had
produced on his mind the impression that we were in a bad
way. Forty thousand men hold all the riches, and the rest of
the thirty-six millions were just ground down to the last penny.
This was his idea of the state of things in England ; and he
compared it with the condition of Russia. In Russia there was
no great gulf between rich and poor. Strikes, which he looked
upon as mild revolutions, were unknown, and all lived together
in peaceful contentment under the Czar.
When I found an intelligent Russian taking this distorted
view of the condition of England, and holding such optimistic
opinions of the state of Russia, it often struck me that perhaps
our own views of Russia were not always so true as they
might be.
But it was in his criticisms of Indian and Central Asian
affairs that I found M. Petrovsky most interesting, and, perhaps,
more sound. One of the points upon which he was very
insistent was our treatment of the natives. He thought that
we held ourselves too much aloof from them, and that we were
too cold and haughty. Here, I think, we must plead guilty;
though if we had the faculty of getting on closer terms with
those whom we rule, in addition to our other good qualities, we
should be well-nigh perfect When Englishmen are working
hard together with natives, as on active service in the field, for
instance, or surveying or exploring, the two nationalities become
very firmly attached to each other. But ordinarily an English-
man finds great difficulty in '* letting himself out " to strangers
of any description. Very few, indeed, have that genial manner
which draws people together. But as soon as the Englishman
in India gets out of his wretched office, and away from all the
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
1890-91.] M. PETROVSKY, 313
stiffness of cantonment regularity, and is really thrown with
the natives, so that he can see them and they him, the coldness
thaws, and the natives see that in reality there is much warmth
of heart inside the cold exterior. Offices and regulations are
evils which apparently are necessary for effective administration
of our civilized type, but if we shut ourselves up too closely
behind these barriers, and lose touch with the people, then the
Russian consul's fears as to the eventual result of our coldness
will undoubtedly be realized.
Of the Chinese, M. Petrovsky held a very poor opinion.
He looked upon them with contempt, and had hardly a good
word to say for them. Their administration was corrupt, the
army badly officered and badly armed, and the empire generally
honeycombed with secret societies. M, Petrovsky's practical
acquaintance with the Chinese Empire was, however, entirely
confined to Kashgar, and he had not been a hundred miles
into the country, even into this outlying dependency, much less
into China itself. I was surprised, too, to find that neither he
nor any of his staff spoke Chinese, though they had been many
years in Chinese Turkestan, and that they were dependent for
their interpretation upon a Mussulman. Every English consul
in China can speak Chinese, he is compelled to pass an exami-
nation in it, and even for a temporary stay in Turkestan I had
been furnished with a competent English interpreter and a
Cantonese clerk. In this important particular of acquiring a
knowledge of the language of the people with whom we had
to deal, it appeared, therefore, that we took far greater pains than
the Russians did.
This is not the only case in which the Russians show them-
selves careless in learning the language of a country. In
Turkestan it is the exception, and not the rule, for a Russian
officer to speak the language of the people, and of six Russian
officers whom I afterwards met on the Pamirs, only two could
speak Turki, though they were permanently quartered in
Digitized by
Google
314 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xnr.
Turkestan. Those Russians who speak a foreign language,
speak it very well indeed ; but, contrary to the general belief
in England, the majority of even Russian officers speak Russian
only.
Enlivened by these conversations with Central Asian
merchants and with the Russian consul and his staff, the
winter at Kashgar passed more quickly than it might be
expected to do in so remote a corner of the world. We were
fortunate, too, in having several visitors from Europe. The
first of these was M. E. Blanc, a French traveller, who, having
spent a few months in Turkestan, was perfectly willing to put
both the Russian consul and myself right upon any point
connected with Central Asia. The next visit was from the
young Swedish traveller, Doctor Sven Hedin, who impressed
me as being of the true stamp for exploration — physically
robust, genial, even-tempered, cool and persevering. He only
paid a hurried visit to Kashgar from Russian Turkestan, but
he had already made a remarkable journey in Persia, and has
since travelled much on the Pamirs, in Tibet, and Chinese
Turkestan. I envied him his linguistic abilities, his knowledge
of scientific subjects, obtained under the best instructors in
Europe, and his artistic accomplishments ; he seemed to
possess every qualification of a scientific traveller, added to the
quiet, self-reliant character of his Northern ancestors.
Later on, again, we had a visit from M. Dutreuil de Rhins
and his companion M. Grenard, who did me the honour of
staying with me during their fortnight's halt in Kashg^ar, pre-
paratory to their three years' wandering in Tibet, which ended
so disastrously in the murder of De Rhins by the Tibetans.
M. de Rhins was a man of about forty-five, who had served the
principal part of his life in the French navy and mercantile
marine. He had already devoted his time for some years to
the study of Tibet, and was most thorough and methodical
in all his arrangements, and especially in his astronomical
Digitized by
Google
1890-91.] MURDER OF M. DE RHINS. 315
observations. We had many long conversations together, and
I remember being particularly* struck with a remark of his
regarding the feeling between the French and the Germans. He
said that neither he nor the majority of Frenchmen desired to
bring on a war with Germany, but that if the Germans ever
brought a war on he would at once enlist as a private soldier.
In the Franco-German war he had served as an officer.
Having secured the necessary transport, M. de Rhins, with his
companion, set out for Tibet Macartney and I rode out of the
town with them, and we parted with many assurances of good-
will, and after making arrangements to meet one day in Paris.
I afterwards received a couple of letters from M. de Rhins, from
Tibet ; but he never returned from there. He was attacked by
Tibetans, his arms were bound to his body with ropes, and he
was thrown into a river and drowned ; and so died one of the
most hardy, plucky, and persevering of explorers whom France
has sent out Three years after leaving Kashgar his com-
panion, M. Grenard, returned to Paris, and is now engaged in
publishing the results of the journey.
These were our visitors, but we had also the company of
a permanent European resident in Kashgar, Pfere Hendriks, the
Dutch missionary, whom I had met here in 1887, and who still
remains there. Regularly every day he used to come round
for a chat and walk with us, and even now he writes to me
every few months. His i^ lonely and uphill work, and he often
appeared pressed down by the weight of obstacles which beset
his way. But his enthusiasm and hopefulness were unbounded,
and no kinder-hearted man exists. Many of his methods of
conversion used to surprise me, and he certainly was not viewed
with favour by the Russian authorities ; but he was a man who
had travelled much and studied much, and he was ready to talk
in any language, from Mongol to English, and upon any subject,-
from the geological structures of the Himalayas, to his various
conflicts with the Russian authorities. It would astonish people
Digitized by
Google
3i6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiv.
at home to see in what poverty this highly educated man lived,
and to what straits he put himself in the exercise of his calling.
Soon after we arrived he was dining with us, and the next
morning when he came to see us he said he had slept much
better that night. I asked him how it was he had done so, and
he replied he thought it must be from having had some meat
to eat at dinner with us. Then it was we found out that he
lived on bread and vegetables only, for he had not more than
ten or twelve rupees a month to spend, and lived in the merest
hovel, which the Chinese had lent him. Of course, after that
he always had one, and generally two meals a day with us, and
we were delighted at the opportunity of having his company.
Beech and Lennard returned from a trip to Maralbashi
before Christmas, so we were able, with them and with the
Russian consul, his secretary, his son, the Cossack officer of
the escort, and P^re Hendriks, to have a good-sized dinner-
party on Christmas Day. Beech had a wonderful tinned plum-
pudding, which went off* with an explosion when it was opened
on the table, and I had another, which a kind friend in India
had sent up, and which arrived on Christmas Eve, so we were
able to show our Russian friends what "le plum-pudding
anglais," which they had heard so much about but never seen,
was really like.
Beech soon set off" to Russian Turkestan, and was most
hospitably entertained there by the governor-general and
every other official whom he met, and came back in April
much impressed with his reception. Then he and Lennard
departed for the Pamirs to shoot Ovis poll, seventeen head of
which magnificent animals they managed to bag.
At this time my life was saddened by two of the hardest
blows which can befall a man. Both of them were sudden and
unexpected, and in that far-away land letters from my friends
took many months to reach me, and only came at intervals of
weeks together. I longed to be home again once more, and
Digitized by
Google
1891.] / AM MADE CLE. 317
those at home were needing me only a little less than I did
them. But three more months I had still to remain stationary
in Kashgar, the long days slowly dragging by with neyer-
varying monotony.
At last, at the beginning of July, a man appeared one
evening at our house, laden with a huge bag. This was a post
from India. None had arrived for nearly two months, and in
this one the permission to return to India, which I had been so
longing for, arrived at last Another pleasure, too, awaited me.
An official letter for me bore the letters CLE. after my name.
I did not at first pay any attention, thinking it was a mistake
on the part of the clerk. But in a newspaper I found the
announcement that I had been made a Companion of the Order
of the Indian Empire, and this recognition of my services could
not possibly have come at a more welcome time.
Permission was given me to return to India by either Leh
or Gilgit, whichever I preferred ; but poor Macartney was to
stay on in Kashgar, and he is still there. I chose to return by
the Pamirs and Gilgit, as I had already twice traversed the
desolate route across the Karakoram. So I proceeded to hire
ponies for the journey, and to make other necessary arrange-
ments.
In the meanwhile, news arrived from Yarkand that an
English traveller had reached Shahidula from Leh, in an almost
destitute condition, and had told the Chinese authorities that
he wanted to come on to Kashgar to see me. I asked the
Chinese to give him any assistance they could. This they did ;
and shortly after a roughly pencilled note arrived for me, saying
that he was Lieutenant Davison, of the Leinster Regiment ;
that he had come from Leh with the intention of crossing the
Mustagh Pass, explored by me in 1887, but he had been stopped
by the rivers on the way, all his men but one had run away,
and he had lost nearly all his ponies, kit, and money. He had,
therefore, no means of returning to Leh, and was compelled to
Digitized by
Google
3i8 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xiv.
come on to me for assistance. He travelled up to Kashgar
with astonishing rapidity, and wanted, after getting information
an^ assistance from me, to start off back again the next day
to tackle the Mustagh Pass once more. He was exactly like
a bulldog — you could not get him off this pass. He had come
out to get over, and it was hours before I could convince him
that it was impossible to do so before September. But he had
already had experience of the depth and rapidity of the rivers
on the way to it, and he gradually saw that it was out of the
question. I then asked him for an account of his adventures
on the way to Kashgar. It appeared that he had been given
two months' leave from his regiment. He had no time to get
a proper map of the route he would have to follow; but he
pushed on as hard as he could through Kashmir and Ladak
towards the Karakoram Pass, from which point he imagined
that he would merely have to " turn to the left " and he would
see a long distinct range of snow-mountains, with a gap in them,
which would be the Mustagh Pass. He had little idea of the
pathless labyrinth of mountain that actually shut in this remote
pass ! Crossing his first pass between Kashmir and Ladak, he
became snow-blind, and had to be carried across on a bed. At
his second — beyond Leh — the Ladakis whom he had engaged
struck work, and said the pass would not be open for ponies
for weeks yet But Davison, by measures more severe than
diplomatic, managed to get both them and his ponies over. Then
came the Karakoram Pass ; and the only way to traverse this in
the month of May, when the snow on it was all soft and yielding,
was by tediously laying down felts and blankets in front of the
ponies for them to walk over, picking them up as the ponies
had passed over them, and again laying them dcfwn in front —
and so on for mile upon mile. Those who have themselves had
experience of trudging through soft snow at an elevation of
eighteen thousand feet, can best realize what this must have
been to a man who had come straight up from the plains of
Digitized by
Google
1891.] LIEUT. DAVISON'S ADVENTURES. 319
India, and who had never been on a snow-mountain in his life
before. Now came the crisis of the journey. Davison had no
map to show him the way to the Mustagh Pass, and, still worse,
he had no guide.. He had not been able to find a single man
who had been a yard off the beaten track to Yarkand ; but he
had a rough map which gave him the relative position of the
Mustagh and Karakoram Passes ; so he plotted those two points
on a piece of paper, and then started a prismatic compass
survey, which in future he plotted out regularly on the same
piece of paper, and by these means he hoped to be able to make
out his way to the goal he had before him. With this intention,
he followed down the stream which flows from the Karakoram
Pass past Aktagh. But the further he advanced the more
rugged and impracticable became the mountains which bounded
in the valley in the direction of the Mustagh Pass. He could
see nothing of that great snowy range which he had expected
to find standing up conspicuous and distinct from all the rest,
and with the Mustagh Pass forming a landmark which he could
make out from any distance, and steer for without difficulty.
Instead of this, he found himself shut in by rocky precipitous
mountains, which forbade him following any other route but
that which led down the valley he was in. He had lost three
ponies on the Karakoram Pass. Two of his men now deserted
with most of his supplies. But Davison still pushed on, in spite
of the danger of doing so with his scanty stock of food, till —
very fortunately for him — he was pulled up on account of the
stream having increased so much in depth that it had become
unfordable. This was at Khoja Mohammed gorge, about two
marches below Chiragh Saldi. Davison tried to swim the river
with a rope tied round his waist, but the stream was too strong
for him. Finding it impossible to get down the valley at the
time of year when the snows were melting and the rivers in
flood, he reluctantly retraced his steps for a short distance and
then turned north, crossed a pass (the Kokalang, if I remember
Digitized by
Google
320 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xiv.
rightly) which had not previously been explored, and then,
finding ahead of him nothing but snowfields and impracticable-
looking mountains in the direction of Yarkand, he made his
way back again to the valley of the Yarkand (Raskam) River,
with the intention of making for Shahidula, the nearest point
at which he could hope to get supplies. He was now at the
last extremity ; he had but one man, one pony, and supplies for
a day or two. He then fell sick, and could not move, and in
this plight he had to send away his sole remaining servant to
find Shahidula, and bring some supplies and help from that
place. As it turned out, he was nearer Shahidula than he
thought. His servant reached there the same day, and on the
following returned with food and a pony. Davison's difficulties
were then over, and, after resting a few days at Shahidula to
regain his strength, he made his way rapidly to Kashgar. The
ground that Davison covered had been previously explored by
both Russians and English, but Davison had not the benefit of
their experience ; and the remarkable thing about his journey
was that he accomplished it without any previous experience
either of mountaineering or of ordinary travelling. A young
subaltern, of only two years' service, he set out from the plains
of Punjab, and by sheer pluck found his way, in the worst
season of the year for travelling, to the plains of Turkestan, and
this is a feat of which any one might feel proud.
I persuaded Davison to come back with me to India by the
Pamirs, and our preparations for the journey were rapidly made.
I called on all the Chinese officials, and received farewell
dinners from them, and especially from old General Wang much
hospitality. But it was a disappointment to me that I had to
leave Kashgar without having the pleasure of saying good-bye
to M. Petrovsky, the Russian consul. His dignity had been
hurt because I took Davison to call upon him in the afternoon.
He had refused to receive us, and afterwards informed Macartney
that first calls ought always to be made in the middle of the
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] A MISUNDERSTANDING, 321
day. I did my best to appease him by explaining by letter
that we had only intended to do him a civility ; that it was
our custom to call in the afternoon ; and that at Peking I had
myself called upon his own official superior, the Russian
minister, in the afternoon, and been called on in return by him.
But M. Petrovsky replied that he was only concerned with
Kashgar, and that at Kashgar the custom was to call in the
middle of the day.
I regretted this misunderstanding with M. Petrovsky all the
more because I felt myself indebted to him for many civilities
during my stay in Kashgar. He had been most obliging in
forwarding our letters through his couriers to Russian Turkestan ;
he had lent us numbers of books to read ; and in many other
ways had done us kindnesses for which I should have wished to
show my gratitude. I had, however, the satisfaction of parting
on very friendly terms with M. Lutsch, the secretary, and
receiving from him a handsome present as a token of his
regard.
Digitized by
Google
322 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
CHAPTER XV.
KASHGAR TO INDIA.
" And o*er the aerial moantains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way ;
Till in the vale of Cashmere, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs."
Shbllbt.
We left Kashgar on July 22, 1891, Macartney riding out a couple
of marches with us, and then returning to Yarkand. We had
been together for a year now, and the greater part of the time
by ourselves. It does not always follow that two men who
have never seen each other in their lives before can get on
together for a year at a stretch without a break, and with
scarcely a change of society. I felt myself particularly fortunate,
therefore, in having for a companion a man who was not only
a first-rate Chinese scholar, and extremely tactful in dealing
with the Chinese, but who was also even-tempered, and willing
to give and take, as travellers have to be. Mr. Macartney has
since that time done very valuable service in arranging with
the Chinese authorities for the release of slaves from states
under the protection of the Government of India, who have
been sold into Chinese territory. Many such have now been
released, and have returned to their homes in Gilgit,
Baltistan, and Chitral, and a good work has been successfully
accomplished.
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] MURKY ATMOSPHERE OF TURKESTAN. 323
It was with little regret that I now turned my back on the
plains of Turkestan, and ascended the mountains once more on
my way towards India. Chinese Turkestan is an interesting
country to visit, but a dreary place to live in. Even the air is
oppressive ; it is always "murky." For a few days one does not
notice it particularly. There are no clouds ; but when week
after week goes by and the clear sky is never seen, then a
feeling of oppression comes on. The air is always filled with
this impalpable dust from the desert, and Chinese Turkestan
is for ever shrouded in sand. And this not only leaves its mark
upon the mountains, depositing on them layers of light friable
soil, but also makes its impression upon the people of the
country. To a traveller from the direction of China, who
has become accustomed to the insolence of Chinese mobs,
these submissive, spiritless Turkis appear a genial, hospitable
people. And, similarly, when a traveller enters the country
from the inhospitable regions over which the route by
the Karakoram Pass leads, he is so thankful to be in an
inhabited, cultivated country again, that everything to him
seems rose-coloured. But when he has been resident for
some months among the people, he finds them heavy and
uninteresting. In only one respect do they show any enter-
prise, and that is in making pilgrimages to Mecca ; hundreds
of them do this, whole families of them — fathers, mothers, and
children in arms, will set off across those bleak passes, over the
Himalayas, through all the heat of India, and over the sea to
Mecca. Numbers perish on the journey, but still, year after
year, others follow in their track ; and that so apathetic a
people should go to such extremities, is one of the most re-
markable instances I know of the stirring influence of religion.
The heat in the plains had now become very considerable,
daily registering one hundred and two or one hundred and
three degrees Fahrenheit, so we were glad to leave them behind,
and find the road gradually rising towards the great buttress
Digitized by
Google
324 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.xv.
range of the Pamirs, which stood before us like a wall. We
headed straight towards that glorious mountain, the Mustagh-
ata, which rose twenty-one thousand feet above the plains on
which we stood, and, three days' march from Kashgar, we
entered the Gez defile, the road up which was rough and diflS-
cult and almost impractical for ponies. When the river, which
runs through the defile, is low, ponies can be led up the bed ;
but now, in the summer-time, when it is in full flood, they
have to be taken two and three thousand feet higher up, over a
spur, then down again for a mile or two, along the valley
bottom again, then once more over a hill, and so on for the
whole way up. On the hillside there was seldom any path, and
the ponies had to scramble about amongst the rocks and
boulders, and up and down places not much less steep than
the roof of a house. But, once through this defile, we found
ourselves on an open plain, surrounded on all sides by
mountains, but itself quite flat To the left, as we emerged
from the defile, was a large lake. This was not marked on
any of my maps, though the district has been well surveyed,
and I was further puzzled to see quantities of sand-drift cover-
ing the lower parts of the low, rounded mountains on the
opposite bank. As the water of the lake came right up to the
mountain-side, it was difficult to see where the sand could
come from ; but I found that the lake was only a few feet deep,
and when the melting of the snows has finished, it dwindles
to a mere marsh, exposing, at the same time, large deposits of
sand, which the wind blows on to the mountain-sides. This
lake was an extension of the Balun-kul.
The scenery now changed completely. Up the course of
the Gez River, the valleys had all been deep and narrow, with
precipitous sides, and at the head of the defile, on the left-hand
side, the great mountain mass of the Mustagh-ata looked as if
it had but just been rudely thrust upward, and the shattered
sides of the mountain were exposed fresh from the upheaval.
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] KARA'KUL. 325
But beyond the defile, looking toward the Pamirs, the mountains
were all rounded, the main valleys were fiat open plains, and
even the side valleys were wide and shallow. No trees grew
anywhere. The mountain-sides were brown, and only covered
with coarse wormwood, but the valley bottom had a luxuriant
growth of grass, which at this time of year was very rich and
succulent.
At Lake Bulun-kul, Lieutenant Davison parted from me, and
travelled westward to the Alichur Pamir, by the Ak-berdi Pass,
which he was, I believe, the first European to cross. It is an
easy one, as most of the passes on the Pamirs are, and leads
down to the Rang-kuL Meanwhile, I travelled on to the Little
Kara-kul, a lake with absolutely unique surroundings. No
other lake in the world can boast of two peaks of over twenty-
five thousand feet each, rising from its very shores. Here, on
the edge of the Roof of the World, was this lovely sheet of clear
blue water, with its grassy banks, and the two great mountains
standing like two sentinels above its shores. These mountain
peaks are the Mustagh-ata and another, which Mr. Ney Elias,
who discovered it, named Mount Dufferin. They rise not as
rugged pinnacles, but in huge masses, and so gradually and
evenly that the ascent seems perfectly easy, and entices travellers
to scale the icy summits, and from these to look out over
the Roof of the World, far away to the Himalayas, and round
over the vast plains of Turkestan to the Celestial Mountains,
which divide Russia from China. No other mountain that I
have seen seems easier of access, and from no other could such
an extended view be obtained ; Russia, India, and China, each
presses round its base.
Near the Kara-kul there were several encampments of
Kirghiz, with their numerous flocks feeding on the rich
pasturage round the lake. Thence I crossed by the easy
Ulugh Rabat Pass into the wide Tagarma plain, and passed on
to Tashkurgan, which I now visited for the third time. After
Digitized by
Google
326 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
halting here for a day to collect supplies, I left on August 5,
and marched up the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, intending to pro-
ceed to Gilgit by the Baroghil or some other pass leading into
Chitral territory. A considerable amount of rain fell at this
time of year, and places which two years before I had seen
dried up and parched by the November frosts, were now fresh
with the summer green, and grass was plentiful.
All this time reports kept coming in that a small Russian
force had entered the Pamirs, and proclaimed them Russian
territory, and at the head of the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir I found
several families of Kirghiz who had fled before the Russians. I
crossed the Wakhijrui Pass, fifteen thousand six hundred feet,
an easy pass, with a small lake on the summit, and the surface
of the ground carpeted with gentians, edelweis, and yellow
poppies. I then descended into the basin of the River Oxus,
and passed along the Pamir-i-Wkkhan, uninhabited at this
season, but tenanted in the winter by Wakhis, to Bozai-Gumbaz,
which I reached on August 10. So much has since been
written about this place, that people might easily imagine it
to be a town or large village, whereas the only building on the
spot is the tomb of a murdered Kirghiz chieftain, and the only
inhabitants occasional nomadic Wakhis. Here I found a party
often Cossacks encamped. They formed a guard over the stores
which had been left here by the main party of Russians, which
had gone on to reconnoitre in the direction of the Baroghil
Pass. There was no officer with this party of Cossacks at
Bozai-Gumbaz, so I halted here till the officers returned, as I
was anxious to meet them. Among the Cossacks of this party
I recognized one who had been with Captain Grombtchevsky in
1889, and was able to show him a photograph of our combined
parties which the Russian officer had taken, and of which he
had sent me a copy from St Petersburg, together with a very
kind invitation to visit him in Margillan.
On August 13 the reconnoitring party returned As I
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] / MEET COLONEL YONOFF. 327
looked out of the door of my tent, I saw some twenty Cossacks
with six officers riding by, and the Russian flag carried in front.
I sent out a servant with my card and invitation to the officers
to come in and have some refreshments. Some of them came
in, and the chief officer was introduced to me as Colonel
Yonoff. He and all of them were dressed in loose " khaki "
blouses, with baggy pantaloons and high boots, and they wore
the ordinary peaked Russian cap, covered with white cloth.
Colonel Yonoff also wore on his breast a white enamel Maltese
cross, which I recognized as the Cross of St. George, the most
coveted Russian decoration, and I at once congratulated him
upon holding so distinguished an order. Colonel Yonoff was a
modest, quiet-mannered man, of a totally different stamp to
Captain Grombtchevsky. He had less of the bonhomie of the
latter, and talked little ; but he was evidently respected by his
officers, and they told me he had greatly distinguished himself
in the Khivan campaign. I gave the Russian officers some tea
and Russian wine, which Mr. Lutsch, the consul's secretary, had
very kindly procured for me from Margillan ; and I tlien told
Colonel Yonoff that reports had reached me that he was
proclaiming to the Kirghiz that the Pamirs were Russian terri-
tory, and asked him if this was the case. He said, it was so,
and he showed me a map with the boundary claimed by the
Russians coloured on it. This boundary included the whole of
the Pamirs except the Tagh-dum-bash, and extended as far
down as the watershed of the Hindu-Kush by the Khora Short
Pass.
The Russian officers stayed with me for about an hour, and
then went off to make their own camp arrangements, asking
me, however, to come and dine with them that evening. When
I went round to them, I found that they were doubled up in
very small tents. Three of them lived in a tent which was not
high enough to stand upright in, and at dinner there was just
room for seven of us to squat on the ground, with a tablecloth
Digitized by
Google
328 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xv.
spread in the middle — three officers on each side, and one at the
head. No wonder these Russians thought my camp arrange-
ments luxurious. I had what is known as a field-officer's
Kabul tent, about eight feet in length, breadth, and height, and
with a bath-room and double fly. I had, too, a bed, table, and
chair. Such luxury filled the Russians with astonishment ; but
they were merely making a rapid raid, while I had set out from
India to travel for more than a year. The whole tent and equij>-
ment of camp furniture was not a pony-load, and when there
is no necessity to stint transport, as there is not on the Pamirs,
for a small party, it it much better to take a whole pony-load,
and make one's self comfortable, than to take half a load and be
miserable. When there is any necessity for it, British officers
go without any tent at all ; but when they can make themselves
comfortable, as a rule they do.
We squeezed into the little tent, and proceedings com-
menced with drinking the inevitable glass of vodka. Then
followed a dinner, which for its excellence astonished me quite
as much as my camp arrangements had astonished the Russians.
Russians always seem to be able to produce soups and stews of
a good wholesome, satisfying nature, such as native servants
from India* never seem able to imitate. The Russians had
vegetables, too — a luxury to me — and sauces and relishes, and,
besides vodka, two different kinds of wine and brandy.
Though only one of the six Russians spoke French, they were
all very hospitable and cordial, and at the conclusion of dinner
Colonel YonofF proposed the health of Queen Victoria, while I
proposed that of the Emperor of Russia.
There were, besides Colonel Yonoff, a staff-officer from St
Petersburgh, two Cossack officers, a doctor, and a surveyor
named Benderski, who had been to Kabul with the Russian
mission of 1878, and had also surveyed the Pamirs with
IvanofTs expedition of 1883. Colonel Yonoff now showed me
the survey which his party had just made, and the route they
Digitized by
Google
1891.] EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION. 329
had followed across the Hindu Kush. They had proceeded from
Bozai-Gumbaz to the Khora Bhort Pass (also called Baikra and
Tash-kupruk, and now by the Russians the " Yonoff "). They
had crossed this, and then turned westward up the head-waters
of the Ashkuman or Karumbar River, and then across the lower
watershed into the valley of the Yarkhun River, and from there
up to the Darkot Pass, the summit of which they reached, and
looked down into the valley of Yasin. Since crossing the
Khora Bhort they were on the Indian side of the watershed,
and in territory generally considered to belong to Chitral.
From the Darkot Pass they turned north again, and crossed the
Baroghil Pass, or rather another depression in the range within
a few miles of it, and, passing by the Afghan post of Sarhad,
returned up the valley of the Panja to Bozai-Gumbaz. The
Cossacks were all mounted, and they had some difficulty in
getting over the Khora Bhort Pass, but they seemed well satis-
fied with the results of their trip. They imagined, however,
that the existence of the Khora Bhort Pass was unknown to
the English, and were astonished when I showed them a
passage in the French traveller Capus's book with this pass
mentioned in it It had, too, as a matter of fact, been thoroughly
surveyed by the English Engineer officer, Captain Tyler.
We spent a long evening together, squatting on the floor of
the little tent, and talking very freely upon subjects of mutual
interest The Russian officers were very anxious to know how
near on the other side of the range supplies could be obtained,
for along the four hundred miles up to it from their starting-point
at Osh, nothing in the way of grain is procurable. They said,
too, that they wondered at our stationing a political agent in
Gilgit, and making that place an important military outpost,
while we had no representative in Chitral, and appeared to pay
no attention to that place. At that time, though British officers
had visited Chitral on temporary missions, we had no agent
permanently stationed there, and, curiously enough, I was myself.
Digitized by
Google
330 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xv/
two years later, appointed the first permanent agent in that
important place.
It was not till after midnight that the dinner broke up, and
Colonel Yonoff and all the officers escorted me back to my tent,
half a mile off, parting with many protestations of friendship.
On the next morning they left for the Alichur Pamir. I waited
on for a few days, expecting Davison to rejoin me, and we would
then have proceeded together to Gilgit
But three nights later, as I was getting into bed, I heard the
clatter of horses' hoofs on the stones outside my tent, and,
on looking out, saw, in the bright moonlight, about thirty
mounted Cossacks drawn up in line, with the Russian flag in
the centre. I hastily put on a great-coat, and sent my servant
to ask the officer in command if he would come in. Two or
three officers dismounted, and I found they were Colonel Yonoff
and the same officers whom I had parted with three nights
before. Colonel Yonoff said he had something very disagree-
able to say to me. He then courteously and civilly, and with
many apologies, informed me that he had that morning, while
at Lake Victoria, on the Great Pamir, received a despatch from
his government, in which he was instructed to escort me from
Russian territory back to Chinese territory. He said he very
much disliked having to perform such a duty, for I was a
military officer and he was a military officer, and this was a
duty usually performed by police officials ; we had, moreover,
met before on very friendly terms, and he had been in hopes
that I would have already left Bozai-Gumbaz, and saved him
from the necessity of carrying it out.
I told him that I did not consider I was on Russian
territory at all, and that, in any case, I was returning to India;
but Colonel Yonoff replied that by his maps Bozai-Gumbaz was
included in the Russian territory, and his orders were to escort
me back to Chinese, and not British territory. I then asked
him what he would do if I refused to go, and he said he would,
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] RUSSIANS ORDER ME AWAY, 331
in that case, have to use force. There was, of course, no
answering this argument, for he had thirty Cossacks, while I
had not a single soldier with me. I therefore informed him
that I should have, in these circumstances, to submit to
any terms he might wish to impose, but I should do so under
protest, and should report the whole matter to my Government.
Beyond that I had, therefore, nothing further to say.
Colonel Yonoff again repeated his regrets at having to treat
me as he had been instructed to do, and said that he would so
far modify his action as to allow me to proceed by myself
instead of escorting me. He then drew up, in French, a form
of agreement, in which it was said that, acting under the
instruction of the Russian Government, he was to cause me to
leave Russian territory, and that I agreed, under protest,
to do this, and undertook to proceed to Chinese territory by
the Wakhijrui Pass, and not to return by any of a number of
passes which he named, and which included every known pass
across the watershed of the Pamirs from the vicinity of the
Alai as far down as the Baroghil Pass. Having signed this
agreement, and made a copy of it, I told Colonel Yonoff that
I hoped he would consider that business over, and return to
our former friendly relations, and have supper with me. His
baggage was far behind, and it was now nearly midnight We
accordingly all sat down to a rough supper ; and the Russian
officers afterwards went off to their own encampment and left
me alone once more. Next morning I packed up my things
and started for the Wakhijrui Pass. As I rode past the
Russians, Colonel Yonoff and his companions came out to
wish me good-bye, and express their sincerest regrets at
having to treat a friend as they had been obliged to treat
me. They presented me with a haunch of Ovis poli^ from an
animal they had shot on the previous day, and we parted on as
friendly terms as it was possible to be in the circumstances.
I, of course, at once reported the whole matter to my
Digitized by
Google
332 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
Government, and thirteen days after the incident had occurred,
far away on the Pamirs though it was, the British Ambassador
at St Petersburg had made a protest to the Russian Govern-
ment, the upshot of which was that the Russian Ambassador
in London apologized to Lx^rd Salisbury for the illegal action
of Colonel Yonoff, and the Russian Government has now
declared, in the Pamir Agreement, that Bozai-Gumbaz, the
place which Colonel Yonoff had stated to be Russian territory,
is beyond the sphere of Russian influence.
Meanwhile I recrossed the Wakhijrui Pass, and encamped
for some weeks on the far side of it, at the mouth of the
Kukturuk valley. This is immediately opposite the Kilik Pass
into Hunza, and as these people of Hunza were showing signs
of hostility to us, which a few months later resulted in the
sending of an expedition against them ; and as, moreover, they
committed a raid on a Kirghiz encampment only ten miles
below the spot where I was myself encamped, I had to take
turns with my Pathan servants to keep watch during the
night, till an escort under Lieutenant J. M. Stewart arrived
from Gilgit for my protection. For six weeks I remained at
this place, situated over fifteen thousand feet above sea-level.
Even at the end of August there were sharp frosts at night,
and the water in my basin would be coated over with ice in
the morning, and by the end of September the thermometer
went down to zero Fahrenheit The patches of grass, so green
and fresh in the summer months, now died down and withered,
and the hills and valleys became bare and bleak as the winter
cold closed on them. The mountains in that part were mostly
rounded and uninteresting — ugly heaps of rock and earth,
with no trace of beauty to attract attention, and life in Kukturuk
was in the highest degree monotonous till Lieutenant Stewart
arrived.
At last, on October 4, Lieutenant Davison rejoined me.
He had been treated in an even more cavalier manner by the
Digitized by
Google
1891O LIEUT. DAVISON AND THE RUSSIANS, 333
Russians than I had, and been marched off back with them to
Turkestan from the Alichur Pamir. As far as he personally
was concerned, he seems to have enjoyed the trip; he found
the Russian officers very cheery companions ; he was asked
to dinner by the Russian governor of Margillan, and altogether
he had a much better time with them than he would have had
with his regiment in the plains of India during the hot weather.
He was able to do some useful work, too, for the Russians
took him by a road which no British officer had traversed
before. Having thoroughly satisfied themselves, the Russians
escorted Davison to the Chinese frontier, and then let him go.
But here a difficulty arose. Davison had with him no passport,
and as he came from Russian territory, the Chinese frontier
official naturally took him for a Russian and wished to stop
him. But the want of such a trifle as a passport was not
likely to stop Davison very long, and he and his man jumped
up on their ponies while the Chinese official was vociferating,
and they galloped off towards Kashgar, scarcely stopping till
they reached the place, where Davison saw the Chinese officials
who had known him before, and explained matters to them.
He then came on to rejoin me on the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir.
Away in the distance down the valley I saw a horseman
approaching dressed in the peaked cap and high boots of the
Russians, and I thought that another Russian was going to
honour me with a visit This proved, however, to be Davison.
As was the custom with him, he had travelled with wonderful
rapidity, and had only taken ten days to reach Kukturuk from
Kashgar.
We now had to find our way back to India as originally
intended. Colonel Yonoff had barred all the known passes
to me, so our only resource was to discover an unknown pass
— always an easy matter in those parts — for the mountains
there are rarely too difficult for small parties to get over. On
October 5 we set off, therefore, and instead of following up the
Digitized by
Google
334 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
main valley to the Wakhijrui Pass, we branched off from it
about five miles lower down than the pass, and ascended a
side valley. In this we found a glacier, up which we had to
make our way, but it was easy enough to admit of our taking
yaks up it, and just before sunset we reached the summit
Then, indeed, a magnificent view presented itself. By
Kukturuk the mountains had all been low and tame — I speak,
of course, comparatively, for they were far higher even above
the valley bottom than are any hills in the British Isles above
the sea — but here we were among the real mountain monarchs
once more. We saw before us an amphitheatre of snowy peaks
glittering in the fading sunlight, and at their foot one vast
snowfield, the depository of all their surplus snow and ice, and
the first beginning of the great glacier which would bear the
burden down the valley from it This nook of mountains was
the very Heart of Central Asia. One side of the amphitheatre
was formed by the range of mountains which divides the waters
of the Oxus, which flow to Turkestan, from the waters of the
Indus, which make their way to India. Here was also the
meeting-point of the watershed which divides the rivers flowing
eastward into Chinese Turkestan from those flowing westward
to Russian and Afghan Turkestan, with that other watershed
which separates the rivers of India on the south from the rivers
of Central Asia on the north. At the very point at which
we stood those two great watersheds of Asia met ; they formed
the glittering amphitheatre of snowy peaks which we saw before
us, and it was from the snowfields at the base of these that
issued the parent glacier of the mighty Oxus.
Just below the pass we found a small lake, about three-
quarters of a mile in length and width, fed by three glaciers.
It was walled all round, except at one point, by cliffs a hundred
feet and more in height of pure transparent ice. Its waters
were of a deep clear blue, and overflowed at the one unguarded
side in a small stream down the glacier in the main valley below.
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] I^OIV TO RETURN Y 335
We did not now descend into this main valley, which is
that of the Panja River, the principal branch of the Oxus, but
kept along high up the mountain-side, about fifteen thousand
feet above the valley bottom. Darkness had come on, and I
was unable to see how far down the valley the glacier ex-
tended ; but at rather more than a mile above the point where
the route by the Wakhijrui Pass descends into this same valley,
we came down into the valley bottom, and found there no
glacier, but a considerable stream — the Panja. The pass which
we crossed was situated about eight miles south of the Wak-
hijrui. There are no signs of a path by it, and, as far as I
could learn, not even a Kirghiz had been by it before. But
it presents no particular difficulties, and we were able, as I
said, to take yaks the whole way, and were generally able to
ride them. The pass has, however, no importance, as the
Wakhijrui is easier and more direct.
Arriving in the dark at midnight, and with the whole
country deeply covered with snow, we could find no brushwood.
We had, accordingly, to content ourselves with a few tent-pegs
as fuel for fire by which to heat up a little water for tea ;
and then, having pitched our tents on the snow, we turned in.
Next day we marched down the Pamir-i-Wakhan, which, on '
account of its right bank facing south and so getting the sun,
is much frequented by the Wakhi shepherds in the winter
months ; and on the day after passed by Bozai-Gumbaz. We
now had to discover another new pass, for here again all the
known passes were barred by my agreement with Colonel
Yonoff. The range of the Indus watershed, the main ridge
of the Hindu Kush, was likely to prove far harder to cross than
had the last mountain barrier, and I had, therefore, for some
time past taken pains to find out from the natives if any other
pass than the known ones existed. It is of little use to ask
the people straight out, " Is there a pass ? " They would, of
course, reply, " No, there isn't," and the conversation would end
Digitized by
Google
336 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
So I used to say that I was going by a pass to the right of
such and such a pass, the latter being some well-known one.
For a long time the men replied, one after another, that no
such pass existed, but at last one man said that it was a very
difficult one. Then I had the clue that there really was one,
and matters after that were comparatively simple.
Two days after passing Bozai-Gumbaz, we reached the foot
of the long-sought-for pass. But it was snowing hard, and had
been snowing equally hard for some days. Lieutenant Stewart,
who had preceded me by a few days, had crossed the Khora
Bhort Pass with difficulty, according to our Wakhi guides. We
were now well into October, and this heavy fall of snow had
closed the pass for the year. I told the Wakhis that the
weather would certainly clear on the morrow, and then we
should find no difficulty, for I had crossed many passes before
and knew how to tackle them. But when we rose at five the
next morning it was snowing harder than ever, and the
Wakhis said it was quite impracticable. I told them, however,
that I wanted them to come with me to show me how im-
practicable it was, and then we started off, Davison and I riding
yaks, and two Wakhis on foot. How thankful we in England
ought to feel that the Oriental does not come raging round
our country and insist upon turning us out to climb mountains
in the depth of winter, and in the middle of snowstorms, while
he rides comfortably along by our sides and tells us that there
is no difficulty! The patient, submissive Wakhi consents to
do this without a murmur — that is to say, without a murmur
worth recording in these pages. And the result was that we
were able to cross the pass successfully and without any serious
inconvenience.
After ascending a rocky valley for three miles, we suddenly
came on a glacier, up which we had to climb for about seven
miles to the summit of the pass. The snowfall was so heavy^
that when we were once on this glacier we could not see a trace
Digitized by
Google I
1891.] THE KARUMBAR RIVER, 337
of the mountains on either side. The only thing we saw was
the billowy, snow-covered glacier, and up this we kept, knowing
that it must necessarily lead to the pass. We, of course, had
to proceed very slowly and carefully, for fear of crevasses hidden
by the snow. But, like the elephant, which will not cross a
shaky bridge, the yak knows by instinct the parts that will not
bear, and, snorting and sniffing along, he finds his way un-
erringly up a glacier ; and about four o'clock in the afternoon
we reached the summit of the pass without experiencing any
real difficulty. The pass was very narrow and deep-cut, and,
on the opposite side, very abrupt ; and the wind blew through
it as through a funnel. I never experienced such an icy blast
as that which met us as we reached the summit. It came
concentrating down upon us with terrific force, and sharp as
a knife. We only had its full force for a few minutes, for we
quickly dropped down into comparative shelter, but during that
short time our faces were cut across in slashes. Most of my
face was protected, for I wore a thick beard ; but Davison had
no beard, and suffered very badly. His face did not recover
for weeks after.
The descent from the pass for about a thousand feet was
extremely rough and steep, and then we emerged on to a
gentler slope, trending downwards towards the Ashkuman or
Karumbar River. There was no sort of path, and, as the snow-
storm was still raging, we had no means of discovering in which
direction we should move, but wandered aimlessly about till
we were suddenly brought up on the brink of a precipice. Here
we had to halt, for it was dangerous to move when we could
see little before us. But, fortunately, just before sunset the
snowstorm cleared, and we looked down over the precipice into
the valley of the Karumbar River far below. We followed along
the edge of the cliffs till we found a way down into the valley,
and, at about ten o'clock, reached a spot by the river where
wood was procurable in plenty, and here we camped for the night.
z
Digitized by
Google
338 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xv.
We were now once more on the Indian side of the g^reat
watershed of Central Asia, and all we had to do was to push
on as rapidly as we could to India. We reached Gilgit on
October 13, and after a few days* halt with Colonel Durand,
who was still carrying on his work there, pressed on to Kashmir.
Two years before, I had crossed the passes in that direction in
the middle of December, and it did not strike me that there
could be any difficulty at this season, when we were not yet
through October. But this year the winter had closed in
unusually early; there had been very heavy snowstorms, and
consequently, when we came to the Burzil, a pass thirteen
thousand four hundred feet in height, we found that a
detachment of Gurkhas coming over it had suffered very
severely. The evening we arrived there this detachment of
two hundred men was expected, and we prepared dinner for
the officers. But it was not till nearly one o'clock at night
that any arrived, and then we heard that the mules carrying
their baggage had stuck in the snow; the officers and men
had worked for the whole of the day and halfway through
the night to get them along, but the poor animals and their
unfortunate native drivers — all of them, animals and men,
from the plains of India, and unacquainted with cold and
snow — had not been able to perform the task. The animals
had to be unloaded in the narrow path through the snow,
and left there till morning, while the men got what shelter
they could in the woods farther on, near the camping-ground.
When Captain Barratt, the officer in command, arrived, he
complained of a pain in his foot, and this proved to be a
severe frost-bite, which laid him up for nearly six months,,
and through which he lost three toes. Altogether there were
one hundred and thirty-two cases of frost-bite among the
men and followers of that detachment, who, coming up
suddenly from the heat of India, were unable to withstand
the unexpected cold.
Digitized by
Google
i89i.] END OF ANOTHER JOURNEY. 339
Next day Davison and 1, with our sturdy Yarkand ponies
now inured to cold and snow, crossed the pass without mishap,
and, finding the ponies still had work in them, we were
able to accomplish another march on the opposite side as
well.
Two days later we crossed our last pass, the Tragbal, eleven
thousand four hundred feet, and from the summit saw once
again the lovely vale of Kashmir spread out at our feet, and
looked out on the pine-clad slopes, the cultivated village lands,
the placid lake, and the distant range of snowy peaks beyond
All was deep in snow at the summit of the pass, and the cold
intense in the early morning, but at each step we descended
towards the valley of Kashmir the air grew warmer. The icy
blasts of the Pamir passes, and the gloomy frosts of the Burzil,
were now left well behind us. We discarded our fur cloaks,
and, as we approached the valley, even our coats also ; and
then, as evening was drawing in, we reached the shores of the
lake and threw ourselves into one of the luxurious Kashmir
gondolas which was awaiting us.
Another journey had been accomplished ; all the difficulties
and all the anxieties of it were now over. For seventeen months
I had been away from civilization, and cut off from intercourse
with my friends, and now once more I was returning to all
the pleasures which that can give. As the sun was declining
towards the horizon, and casting the long shadows from the
mountains over the still waters of the lake, we pushed off from
the shore, and were paddled smoothly and quietly over its
unruffled surface. No more exertion on our part was now
necessary ; all we had to do was to recline luxuriously in the
boat, while we were borne swiftly and easily over the water.
The sun set in a glow of glory. The snows of the mountain
summits were tinged with ruddy hues, the fleecy clouds
overhead were suffused in ever-changing colours; then slowly
the peaks in the distant east grew grey, the warm tints faded
Digitized by
Google
340 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xv.
from the scene, one by one the stars pierced through the
skies, and night settled down upon the mountains.
Then, as I lay back watching the enchanting scene of
peaceful beauty, and as the sense of rest and quiet grew upon
me and soothed away the feeling of stern resolve which settles
on one through a journey, I thought over the long marches
past, the many privations now at an end, and the difficulties
overcome. I thought of these, and of those hard latter months
of my stay in Kashgar, and I knew that the hardest must be
past, and that a brighter time was nearing.
At Srinagar I parted with poor Davison, and never saw
him again. Two years later he was ordered to the Gilgit
frontier, but he caught a chill in crossing the Burzil Pass, and
died of enteric fever a few marches beyond it. He had all the
makings of a great explorer; he had unsurpassable energy,
what one might almost call blind pluck, for nothing to him
was dangerous, and he had an inexhaustible enthusiasm for
travel. I may add that, though few of us who knew him
suspected him of it, papers written by him, and found among
his effects, showed that he thought very seriously upon many
subjects not generally supposed to engage the attention of so
young an officer as he was, and his loss must be deplored by
all who can admire true manliness and resolution.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER XVI.
CHITRAL AND HUNZA.
* * A peace is of the nature of a conquest ;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser."
Henry IV.
The expedition recorded in the previous chapter was my last
real journey, but for two years and more afterwards I was
employed in the interesting and important states of Chitral
and Hunza, and some account of these countries may be
given as a fitting conclusion to the narrative of my travels on
the northern frontier of India.
We may begin with Hunza, as we already have some
acquaintance with that country. When I travelled through
Hunza in 1889, the country, it will be remembered, was ruled
by a certain Safder Ali. The Government of India found
themselves compelled, in the winter of 1891-2, to make war
upon this chief, and as the result of a brilliant and successful
campaign, directed by Colonel A G. Durand — a campaign
remarkable for the gallantry displayed by individual British
officers, and for the military efficiency of the newly trained
Kashmir troops — Safder Ali was forced to flee from the country,
and Hunza was brought more directly under the control of the
Maharaja of Kashmir and the Government of India. This
country of marauders was henceforth to be duly, though not
Digitized by
Google
342 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xvi.
too severely, controlled, and both people and rulers made to
understand that in this latter end of the nineteenth century
the time had passed when they could raid with impunity, and
without ever considering the other side of the question.
It might be imagined that after a war with them, and
after the flight of their ruler, the people would be anything
but friendly with the British, but eight months later, when
I again visited the country, to relieve Captain Stewart, the
political agent, upon whom had devolved the task of super-
intending the affairs of the country at the conclusion of the
campaign, the people were quiet and peaceful, as if they had
been born and bred under British administration ; officers were
able to travel anywhere through the country without an
escort, and were always treated with respect As I have
already intimated, these people had no rooted antipathy to
the British Government, and they form a remarkable instance
of the good effects which come of following up a successful
campaign by assuming a permanent control. Had we given
these people a hard knock and then retired, as we so frequently
do, and as we are always recommended to do by certain
people, these men of Hunza, like children, would have forgotten
the lesson that had been taught them, and in a few years
would have committed some act of folly — a raid, an attack
upon a Kashmir outpost, or some other aggression — which
would have necessitated another invasion of their country, and
bad feeling would gradually have grown up between us and
them, as it has between the Afghans and the British, though
originally the Afghans were well disposed towards us. The
theory that if the troops were entirely withdrawn after a cam-
paign, and the people left quite independent, they would be
more friendly, is not to be trusted. It sounds very well, but
it is not borne out by facts. There are other ways of preserving
such amount of independence as a semi-barbarous state situated
between two great civilized Powers can have, besides with-
Digitized by
Google
I893-] PACIFICATION OF HUNZA. 343
drawing all troops from the country, and as an instance of
the way in which this may be done, the state of affairs in
Hunza may be described.
What these rough hill-men like above everything else is
being ruled by their own rulers — ^that is, by members of their
own reigning families — and having their customs kept up
without innovation. In Hunza the people are now ruled
by a member of the family which has sat on the throne for
probably hundreds of years — ^at any rate, as long as tradition
goes back — and not by the murderer who brought their country
into trouble, but by another son of the murdered father, by
a man liked and respected by them. And not a single custom,
unless raiding can be called a custom, has been interfered with.
In their internal affairs the people are in much the same
condition as when I first passed through the country in 1889.
All cases are brought before the chief now, as then, and the
British officer who resides in the country is only too glad
to be free from the responsibility and trouble of having to
deal with them. In only one respect is control exercised by
the agent of the Government of India, and that is in regard
to the foreign relations of the state. In that one single respect
this country must lose its independence, but that is inevitable.
Even the larger state of Afghanistan has to this extent been
compelled to lose its independence. And little states like
Hunza no longer can remain entirely independent as regards
their foreign affairs. A wise ruler, however, would recognize
the altered conditions which the spread of two great civilized
Powers through Asia has produced, and would seek to form
his relations with the suzerain power as much as possible on
the basis of an alliance, and this the new chief of Hunza has
informally done. On two occasions he has been asked by
the political agent to give aid to Government. On the first
occasion I was told by Colonel Durand to ask him and his
neighbour, the chief of Nagar, to give, each, twenty-five men,
Digitized by
Google
344 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvi.
trained in the use of rifles, to do the advance guard and
scouting work of a small force which was moving towards
Chitral. Both chiefs immediately agreed to the proposal,
and the Hunza chief said he would not send twenty-five, but
fifty men, or, as far as that goes, a hundred or two hundred,
if so many were necessary, and he would send his Wazir — ^his
chief adviser — with them. In 1895 he again sent men with
Colonel Kelly's force to the relief of Chitral, and Colonel
Kelly has placed on record how useful these men were in
scaling the heights and turning the enemy's position. In this
manner the chiefs, recognizing that their interests are bound
up with those of the British Government, have definitely
thrown in their lot with the Britbh, and by so doing have
not diminished their dignity and importance nor lessened
their independence, but, on the contrary, increased this inde-
pendence, and placed their relations with the supreme power
more on a basis of alliance with than of dependence on it
And the history of British rule in India €hows that states
which act on this principle most consistently retain their
independence longest. The Sikh state of Patiala, in the Punjab,
from the very first assisted the British Government, and there
is now not even a British Resident in it. Lahore, on the
other hand, attacked the British even after the state had once
been defeated. It had, therefore, of necessity, to be subdued,
and it is now British territory, and administered by British
officials.
In the hands, then, of the rulers and people of little states,
such as Hunza, lies the decision as to whether they shall
remain dependent or be absorbed, and those officers who have
had dealings with these states recognize best how much
to the interest, both of the British Government and of the
people, it is that they should be allowed to retain the amount
of independence which Hunza, for instance, still possesses.
Even from the point of view of picturesqueness, it would be
Digitized by
Google
I893-] LOYALTY OF HUNZA.
345
a thousand pities to destroy the freedom of these mountain
peoples; to break up those primitive courts where the ruler
meets his people face to face, and knows each man among
them as they know him ; and to wither their simple customs,
as the grass is withered by the frost, by introducing the cold
system of British administration, the iron rules and regulations,
and all the machinery of an empire into this little state. But
when Government can see that the ruler is ready to help
them when aid from him is required ; when they see that
he recognizes how essential to his very existence as ruler of
the state it is that he should have dealings with no other than
the British ; when they note that he governs his people without
oppression ; and when ruler and people realize that Government
has no wish to destroy their independence, or to interfere
with their customs ; — then it is evident that satisfactory
relations have been established, and that Government is in
a far better position than if the country were governed directly.
In Hunza there are now rather less than a hundred Kashmir
troops, connected by small posts with the garrison at Gilgit,
sixty-five miles distant There is also a British officer to
conduct the relations of Government with this state and with
the neighbouring state of Nagar across the river. Hunza is
ruled by a half-brother of the late chief Safder Ali, named
Mohammed Nazim, a pleasant-mannered, intelligent man, about
thirty-four years of age. He and the successive British officers
who have represented the Government of India in his state
have always been on very intimate terms, and the duties of
the latter have become so light that, since the end of 1894,
no special political officer has been deputed, but the military
officer attached to the Kashmir troops stationed in the
country has been instructed to carry on the little political
work that has to be done. The presence of just a few troops
in the country, and the certainty of Government support,
serve to keep the ruler and people steady, and the British
Digitized by
Google
346 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvi.
officer is able to exercise a useful influence for good throughout
the country, not by any direct interference, but by simple
daily intercourse with the chief and his people. And no
more enjoyable appointment than that at Hunza could be
imagined. I remember on a stifling day in August, 1892, at
that season of the year when the sun beats down upon its
bare rocks more like the interior of an oven than what one
would expect of a mountain valley five thousand feet above the
sea, riding up from the Gilgit valley, out of all this heat into
the freshness of the Hunza valley, and, as I came round a spur
of the hills, suddenly encountering Rakapushi Peak rising
sheer nineteen thousand feet from the place where I stood
I had seen this mountain before in my journey down the
valley in 1889, and had borne away no humble impression of
it I have often seen it since, but it is a remarkable fact
about this and other great mountains, that each new sight of
them seems to impress itself more deeply than the one before.
I came now with a vivid recollection of the splendour of Raka-
pushi, the towering mass of mountain rising directly from the
valley bottom, the glittering snowfields, and the proud cold
summit soaring right into heaven. But as I once again turned
the corner of the spur, and this wonderful sight suddenly came
full upon me, I involuntarily pulled up. It far exceeded all
that I had remembered.
We followed the valley sometimes along the bare hillside,
but more often through pretty village lands, first by the fort
of Nilt, the position so gallantly captured by Colonel Durand's
troops, when the gateway was blown up by^ Aylmer ; by the
rocky mountain-side — up which Manners-Smith and Taylor
clambered with their handful of men, and so outflanked the
enemy's breastwork, built all along the edge of precipitous cliffs
— till Nilt is left behind and other forts reached, near the gates
of which are sitting groups of the very men who fought us only
a few months before ; past these and the shady apricot orchards
Digitized by
Google
1893.] / RETURN TO BALTIT 347
and waving cornfields, now galloping along the level cultivated
land, now descending to the rocky bed of a glacier torrent, then
on to more village lands again, till the valley widens out and
the towers of the chiefs palace at Baltit are seen in ^the
distance.
Here, a few miles from his capital, I was met by Mohammed
Nazim and all his principal men, dressed up in the gorgeous
Indian robes presented to them on various former occasions
by British officers. We both dismounted and canie forward
on foot to g^eet each other, and I was able to recall to the chief
how he had accompanied me through Hunza to Gilgit in 1889,
and how we had met in Sarikol in the following year. Then
we all mounted again and rode into Baltit, the capital of Hunza,
a hundred or so of these rough picturesque fellows riding and
running along by our side, and a band marching in front. It
was a bright clear day of early autumn. Behind Baltit was
a row of rocky peaks like the spires of a cathedral, and im-
mediately overhanging the fort-palace was a rugged mass of
mountain rising in a succession of precipices fifteen thousand
feet above it
My tent was pitched in an orchard of apricot trees, on a
cool grassy plot, by the encampment of the detachment of
a hundred Kashmir troops under Captain Bradshaw, who now
preserved order in Hunza. This little camp was situated at
the end of a spur facing down the valley, and from it we looked
out over orchards and terraced fields to the great Rakapushi
Peak filling up the end of the valley with a wall of snow.
Away to the right was the fort-palace perched on an out-
standing rock, and above it the peak, twenty-three thousand
feet in height, whose summit seemed almost to overhang the
fort. Then to the left was the Nagar valley, with snowy peaks,
twenty-three and twenty-four thousand feet high, guarding it
on all sides. No more romantic spot than this could be
imagined.
Digitized by
Google
348 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xvl
The people, too, as I came to know them, proved to be
particularly attractive. They are a manly race, with a hard,
resolute look about them, and they are devoted to games and
sport They play polo with extraordinary zeal and energy,
their chief being one of the best and keenest players, and they
love dancing and music. At the same time, there is none of
that aloofness and sullen hidden suspicion and hatred which
often characterizes Pathan tribes, and they are ready and
willing to attach themselves to British officers. They are
undoubtedly the pick of the frontier, and every officer who has
lived amongst them likes them.
For about two and a half months I lived in this delightful
country, till the winter was approaching, and the beauties of
the place were day by day increased by the wonderful autumn
tints which the apricots and poplars take on, and the warm
hues of red and yellow and gold contrasted with the glittering
white of Rakapushi and the deep clear blue of the sky above.
Then, as I was engaged in building rough quarters for the
troops and myself for the winter, and converting the piles of
old matchlocks, which had been collected after the war, into
rude hoes and spades for the people, turning their swords
into ploughshares, news arrived that trouble had occurred in
Chitral, and Colonel Durand wrote to say that the Mehtar
had been killed, and that he wished me to come at once to
Gilgit with some Hunza levies.
On the frontier " at once " means at once, and in a little
more than two hours after receiving Colonel Durand's letter I
had packed up my things; handed over what little "office"
there was to Lieutenant Gurdon ; arranged for the Hunza levies
to follow, and started on my ride of sixty-five miles to Gilgit
During daylight there was little difficulty, but after the sun
had set, and when no stars appeared, and the night was pitch
dark, the task of finding my solitary way along a mountain
path by the side of steep cliffs and over troublesome rocks was
Digitized by
Google
18930 SUMMONED BY COLONEL DURAND. 349
no easy one. But at one o'clock that night I arrived without
mishap, and at ten o'clock the next night the Hunza levies
arrived also. They had traversed the sixty-five miles on foot
in thirty-six hours, starting on the war-path at a moment's
notice. And these the men that not a year before had been
fighting against us I
Chitral, the country where the trouble had arisen, lies to
the west of, and is a considerably larger and more important
state than Hunza. Its population is estimated at about eighty
thousand, and it is roughly about two hundred miles in length
and one hundred and twenty in breadth. It is mountainous
throughout, and only special parts of the valley bottom, where
water can be laid on to the land, are inhabited. This state was
ruled, till the close of 1892, by an astute old chief named
Aman-ul-Mulk, who had welded together Chitral proper and
Yasin into one state. Aman-ul-Mulk was over seventy years
old in 1892. He had seventeen sons, and at his death it was
known that there must be a scramble among these for the
throne. At the end of August, 1892, he died, and the long-
expected scramble began. The second son, Afzul-ul-Mulk,
was in the fort at Chitral at the time of the death of his father,
and he, of course, seized all the arms and treasure stored there,
murdered those of his brothers whom he feared, collected an
army, and set off to fight his elder brother, Nizam-ul-Mulk.
who was away in Yasin. Nizam had little stomach for fighting,
and, without much ado, ran away to Gilgit Afzul was then
recognized by the Government of India as de facto ruler of
Chitral.
But a few weeks later another claimant for the throne ap-
peared. This was Sher Afzul, a half-brother of the old Mehtar's,
who had been driven from Chitral by that chief many years
before, and who had ever since lived in exile in Afghan territory,
almost forgotten. He now suddenly appeared upon the scene.
He crossed into Chitral from Afghan territory by the Dorah
Digitized by
Google
350 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvi.
Pass, only forty-seven miles from the fort at Chitral, rode
rapidly down the valley with a hundred or so of his adherents,
collected others as he went along, and, on the following night,
reached the fort. Afzul-ul-Mulk, hearing a noise, appeared
upon the walls, and, in exposing himself, was shot dead on
the spot Had this unfortunate accident not occurred, he would,
in all probability, have been able on the following day to have
expelled Sher Afzul, but, now that he was dead, the people
of Chitral eagerly gathered round Sher Afzul, who proclaimed
himself their Mehtar. It was the news of this event that had
reached Colonel Durand in Gilgit
Nizam, the eldest son of the old Mehtar, and the rightful
heir to the throne, was in Gilgit at the time the news of his
brother's death reached that place. He at once signified to
Colonel Durand his intention of moving against Sher Afzul,
and started off towards Chitral with all the men he had with
him and with some others of his adherents who had now come
into Gilgit. Colonel Durand, at the same time, despatched two
hundred and fifty rifles, two guns, and the Hunza and Nagar
levies into Yasin, to strengthen his own position in the event
of it becoming necessary to treat with Sher Afzul, and to
preserve order in the western part of the district and in Yasin.
Nizam was entirely successful in his move. He had one small
skirmish with Sher AfzuFs troops, and then Sher Afzul fled
back to Afghan territory as rapidly as he had come. Nizam
marched into Chitral and placed himself on the throne, being
its fourth occupant within a space of a little over three months.
Nizam-ul-Mulk's first act, on ascending the throne, was to
request Colonel Durand to send a British officer to him. He
well knew the value of such an outward and visible sign that
he was closely allied with the British Government, and he
believed that the presence of a British officer in the country
would prevent the recurrence of disturbances such as had
already occurred. Accordingly, on January i, 1893, a mission,
Digitized by
Google
I893-] JOURNEY TO CHITRAL. 351
under Dr. Robertson, left Gilgit. It consisted, besides Dr.
Robertson, of Lieutenant Gordon and myself, and we had with
us an escort of fifty Sikhs. To reach Chitral we had to cross
the Shandur Pass, twelve thousand four hundred feet high, and
it was now midwinter. Even near Gilgit snow fell frequently,
and on the whole march of two hundred and twenty miles to
Chitral it was only in very few places that the snow was not
lying deep. At Ghiza, the last village at which we halted
before crossing the pass, twenty-four miles from it, and situated
at an elevation of ten thousand feet above sea-level, the ther-
mometer was below zero, and the whole countryi of course, deep
in snow. Through this snow we made our way to the camping-
ground of Langar, at the foot of the pass, where we spent
the night before crossing it, the Sikh escort in some rough
shelters which had been erected for them, and the officers in
tents. We were fortunate in only having one or two frost-bites
in our party, and these Bruce at once tackled, rubbing the men's
feet till they said they would much rather have the frost-bite
than the rubbing. A lanky Indian cook of mine, who had never
seen snow in his life before coming to this frontier, was the
worst, and implored Bruce and me to let go of him, as we rubbed
the skin off his feet We were fortunate in having a cloudy
night, and it was consequently less cold than it would have
been had the sky been clear ; and the following day we plodded
through the snow over the pass and down to Laspur, the first
village on the Chitral side. Here we were met by the governor
of the district and a number of notables, and two days later we
reached the fort of Mastuj, where a year later I had to spend
a dreary winter. Here we made our first halt, and even here
the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero, and a bitter
wind blew down the valley, which, like the valleys we had
passed along the whole way from Gilgit, was narrow and
hemmed in by lofty rocky mountains, now covered with snow,
but generally bare and desolate looking. On January 25 we
Digitized by
Google
352 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvi.
reached Chitral, the valley up to within a few miles of that
place narrowing to little more than a gorge, with occasional
open spaces where villages had been built But about three
miles above the fort of Chitral the valley widens out, and is here
about two miles in width. The weather, too, in the lower parts
was considerably milder, and we were able to ride into Chitral
in our uniforms, without great-coats. The new Mehtar, Nizam-
ul-Mulk, met us about three miles above Chitral, with a great
cavalcade of his principal men, and we all rode in together. This
was my first acquaintance with the prince, at whose side I was
to remain for nearly two years. I found him to be a handsome
man of about thirty-four years of age, very European in appear-
ance, intelligent, and well-mannered ; of medium height, thick-
set, and strong. He was dressed in a suit of clothes intended
to represent a British uniform, and he wore on his head the
round cloth cap common in the country. About a mile outside
Chitral the whole cavalcade halted, and we were shown some
firing at a popinjay. At the top of a high mast an earthenware
pot had been hung, and men galloped past firing at it As
we reached the fort, a salute was fired The Mehtar, having
accompanied the mission to the quarters which it was to occupy,
then took leave of them, after declaring how warmly he desired
to welcome them.
We had now had some opportunity of observing the Chitralis,
and I cannot say that my own impression, at any rate, was
a very favourable one. They seemed a gloomy and depressed
people. They had about them none of the hard, determined
look which the men of Hunza have ; and, after coming from
Hunza, I felt little attraction towards these rather sulky-looking
Chitralis. These first impressions I had afterwards to modify,
as I shall relate further on ; but I record them, as they serve to
show that the first impressions of these people are not always
what will be subsequently proved correct. The country, too,
now in the depth of winter, was as depressing as the people.
Digitized by
Google
1893.] UFE IN CHITRAL, 353
Except when crossing the Shandur Pass — and even that was
not very exhilarating — ^we were always at the bottom of narrow
valleys, with lofty mountains overhanging and • enclosing them
in. Not a blade of anything green was to be seen, for all that
was not buried in snow was withered by the frost All the
trees were bare and sombre-looking, and the mud-built villages
damp and cheerless. Chitral itself we found to be, not a town
or even a large village, but a collection of little hamlets scattered
over a stretch of cultivated land about three miles in length and
a mile and a half in width, at the northern end of which, close
by the river, stood a small fort, which formed the residence
of the Mehtar. This was Chitral, a place at that time almost
unknown to English people.
Our first month or two in Chitral was certainly not en-
livening. We lived in a native house, without windows or
chimneys, and with only a hole in the roof by which to let in
the light (and the snow and the cold) and to let out the smoke
(and the heat) of a fire lit in the middle of the floor. There
was little to do out-of-doors, except to take a walk one day up
and the next day down the valley, and the weeks wore by with
monotonous regularity. But as spring came on the whole
aspect changed. Through January and February we had
frequent falls of snow, and the thermometer at night ranged
from twelve degrees Fahrenheit to the freezing-point But in
March the snow cleared away from the valley bottom and the
lower hillsides, the new grass began to sprout, the young corn-
shoots appeared in the fields, little purple primulas and a
beautiful yellow and crimson tulip bloomed out on the river-
banks ; then the willow trees were tinged with green as the
young leaves budded out By the beginning of April the
apricot trees burst into blossom, and the valley was covered
with clouds of white bloom, and then, as day by day the sun-
shine grew warmer, every tree — ^the magnificent planes, the
poplars, the drooping willow, and the orchards of apricots,
2 A
Digitized by
Google
354 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap.xvi.
peaches, pear and apple trees — came into full leaf, and spring
in all its freshness of beauty had blossomed into life.
With the spring the looks of the people lost their winter
gloom. It would be hard for these mountain people to be any-
thing but gloomy, or think of anything else than " stratagems
and spoils," when all their surroundings, indoors and out, are
so depressing as they are in winter, when there is no outdoor
work to be done, and they can only brood and contemplate.
But everything is different when spring comes on. Then they
have to go out to work in the fields; they have the warm
bright sunshine, and growing crops, and blooming orchards,
and the fresh green of the trees to cheer them. During
the winter we had had more than one scare of attacks and
conspiracies and plots of various kinds. But as the people
found more to occupy their minds, and as they saw the Mehtar
establishing his position in the presence of the British mission
in the country, these ugly rumours grew less frequent, and the
disposition of the people more favourable.
We were now able to make little excursions, and Bruce
and I had a very delightful climb up the ridge of mountains
behind Chitral. Bruce had with him four Gurkhas from his
regiment. Two of these had been with him on Sir William
Conway's explorations and climbs in the Karakoram Range.
He had also the appliances of Alpine mountaineering — ice-
axes, ropes, climbing-irons, etc. So, for the first time in my
life, I was able to do a climb in the orthodox Alpine-club
manner. Our first night we spent on a grassy patch, high up
the mountain-side, at the edge of a pine forest, and we imme-
diately felt a sense of relief at having some breadth of view
before us, something to look out upon instead of being cooped
up in the narrow valley below. The next day we made our
way along a ridge through deep snow, and bivouacked directly
under the peak we were going to attack. Then, on the following
morning, the ice-axes and ropes came into play, and Bruce and
Digitized by
Google
D
D
Q
•J
<
>
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
1893.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTRY. 355
his Gurkhas showed their mountain craft. I was then able
to reah'ze how valuable is a training in mountaineering, and how
useful are the Alpine appliances. Bruce took me up places
which I should, of course, have attempted if I had been obliged,
but which I should certainly not have cared to ascend in cold
blood like this without the aid of rope and ice-axe. We finally
reached a very narrow rock ar6te or ridge, and, climbing thence
to its summit, found ourselves sitting astride of a razor-like
ridge of limestone, with our legs on each side dangling over
nearly sheer precipices. Just at the summit the rock was so
sharp that it was. impossible to stand up, and I doubt if we
-could even have sat except astride. We were at no great
height, for the summit, according to our aneroid, was only
thirteen thousand five hundred feet above sea-level ; but this
was the highest point in the immediate vicinity, and we were
able to get a magnificent bird's-eye view of the Chitral valley
and a good part of the country.
It is from a height like this that one can best appreciate
what Chitral really is. It is just a sea of mountains. The
peaks stand all round like the crests of a wave, sometimes of
the same dull colour as the general mass, sometimes breaking
upwards in crests of white snow. Ridge behind ridge the
mountains rise, like the waves of the sea, and they finally toss
themselves up into one great towering mass, and we saw
straight before us, and only a few miles distant, the Tirich Mir,
twenty-five thousand four hundred feet in height For the
most part these mountains are absolutely bare, and the whole
-country appears to be nothing but rock, till far down in the
valley bottoms, at places where the water from some mountain
torrent can be led on to cultivable ground, patches of green
are seen. Even of the valley bottoms the whole lengths are
not cultivated, and it is only where suitable soil has been
washed down from the mountains and deposited in the valley,
and when water can be brought on to this that any cultivation
Digitized by
Google
356 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xvi.
is possible. So, of the whole floor of a valley, perhaps from
one-eighth to one-sixth is all that would be cultivated. The
valley bottoms form but a small proportion of the whole country,
for they are generally mere gorges, and seldom widen out to
a breadth of a mile. It may be imagined, therefore, that
Chitral is not a rich or productive country.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER XVII.
CHITRAL AND HER RULERS.
At the end of May Mr. Robertson and Lieutenant Bruce
returned to Gilgit, and I was left in Chitral with Lieutenant
Gordon and his fifty Sikhs. During the summer months, when
we could meet at polo and in various out-of-door amusements,
I was able to see more of the Mehtar and his people than
had been possible during the winter. Three or four times
a week the Mehtar and his principal men used to come to our
house and sit out under the great plane trees in the garden for
a good two hours, talking over every kind of subject In our
garden, as in most other gardens in Chitral, an earthen platform
had been made under the shade of the plane trees. Here we
spread carpets, and placed chairs for the Mehtar and ourselves ;
twenty or thirty of the chief men were allowed to sit round
on the carpets, and the Mehtar*s guards and servants stood
about in the garden. Then tea, biscuits, sweetmeats, sherbet,
and ices were served round to the Mehtar and his principal men,
and conversation was carried on upon any topic which might
happen to arise. I could not speak Chitrali sufficiently well
to converse in that language, so the native political assistant,
Jemadar Rab Nawaz Khan, a native officer in the Bengal
cavalry, who had been resident in the country for nearly eight
years, used to interpret. Generally I brought down illustrated
newspapers or books, passed them round, and talked upon
the various subjects which were suggested by the pictures.
Digitized by
Google
358 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xviu
Chitralis are quite illiterate, and certainly not a dozen in
the country can either read or write. Even the Mehtar could
not read ; and I do not suppose there has ever been a Mehtar
of Chitral who could. But these Chitralis could perfectly
well understand pictures, not of things which they had never
seen, such as ships, but pictures of men, animals, and natural
objects, with which they were acquainted. When Colonel
Lockhart's Mission visited the country in 1885-86, Dr. Giles
took several photographs of the people, and other photographs
had been taken of Chitralis who had travelled down to India.
When I showed these photos to .my visitors, I found that they
could readily say who each man in the photo was; and when
they saw photos of British officers who had visited Chitral,
they were able to put the correct names to them. They had
their own very definite ideas about beauty. In the illustrated
papers, and in advertisements, there would often be fancy
pictures or portraits of princesses or actresses, over which they
would grow very enthusiastic, and they would generally select
as the most beautiful very much the same types as a European
would. But there was one very pretty picture in the advertise-
ment of a soap-maker, who shall be nameless, which I thought
they would certainly like; yet they said the lady in question
was not worth looking at, and the reason they gave for this
was because she had grey hair! There was no intention of
the artist to give her grey hair, but in our prints we have what
is really nothing more than a conventional sign for indicating
the light falling on a subject, and they thought this light Calling
on the hair was grey hair.
The Mehtar used to grow very enthusiastic over some of
the advertisements. One, in the Field, of an incubator for
hatching eggs, excited his special curiosity, and when I ex-
plained to him that it was a machine for turning eggs into
chickens, he wanted me to write off at once for one for him.
A picture of a collapsible boat also won his admiration, and
Digitized by
Google
NIZAM-UL-MULK, MEHTAR OF CHITRAL.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
I893-] THE MEHTAR AND HIS SURROUNDINGS. 359
he told me if only he could have a boat like that he would
take it every summer to the lake at the top of the Shandur Pass,
and shoot ducks there. From the pictures, he and those of
his men who had been down to India were led on to talk
of the various wonders which they had seen there, and I used
to encourage them to talk of such things, for it gave them
an opportunity of appealing to me to corroborate, before their
fellow-countrymen, the truth of their description. The Mehtar
had himself been down to Calcutta, and he complained that
when he came back nobody would believe the stories he
told them. His old father, Aman-ul-Mulk, had believed him
up to a certain point ; he had believed about the railway and
the telegraph, for he thought it might be possible that men
who could make such good rifles as the English did, might
also be able to invent some arrangements for sending men
and messages rapidly along ; but when his son told him that
the English made ice in the middle of the hot weather, he
said he could not possibly believe that, for God only could
do such a thing. He said he drew the line there, and told
his son he need not tell him any more of his stories !
When, however, the Mehtar or his men told such stories
before me, and I corroborated them, the Chitralis gradually
came to believe they were true; and, both for the sake of
enlightening them about India, and of seeing what had
specially struck those men who had been there, I used to en-
courage the Mehtar to talk of his experiences. I am inclined
to think that what he liked best was driving about in a
"buggy" in Calcutta. He was allowed the free use of an
open victoria with a pair of horses, and he liked to drive
about all day long, lying back in it and enjoying himself.
He said he thought one day of making a road in Chitral,
on the three or four miles of flat by the fort, and getting
a carriage up in pieces and driving in it. The Mint, and
the rows upon rows of guns laid up in the arsenal at Calcutta,
Digitized by
Google
36o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvii.
also struck his imagination. Chitralis who have heard of
the mint can never understand how it is we can ever refuse
to give them as many rupees as they like to ask for. They
are told that we have a machine which turns out rupees in
bucketsful without ever stopping, and they think that this
stream of rupees is like a stream of water which never stops.
They never consider that the silver for the rupees must be
found first of all, and their only idea is that when we want
money we have only to take a bucket down to the Mint
and draw off rupees like water from a fountain. Chitralis
have just the same ideas on the subject of money as children
have on the riches of their parents, A boy at school cannot
understand why his father, who has ever so many hundreds
of pounds, is so chary about giving him even one ; and the
Chitralis, when they know that the Government of India has
this fountain of wealth down at Calcutta, do not understand
why British officials should refuse to give them ^the few
rupees they ask for. It may well be imagined, therefore, how
indignant the Mehtar was when, on taking with him down
to Calcutta thirty-three instead of the thirty men he had
arranged for, he was asked to pay the railway fares for the
additional three men.
There is no doubt that the Mehtar derived very gfreat
advantage from his visit to India, and my task in dealing with
him was very considerably lightened from his possessing some
idea of what the power and resources of the British Government
really are. An intelligent prince, like Nizam-ul-Mulk, who
visits India, recognizes how backward his country is. He sees
the advantage to be gained from the improvement to be seen
in India, and he knows that the arguments of the old-fashioned
party, who say that things have done very well all these years
and that there is, therefore, no need for change, are not sound
He was, therefore, always wishing to make improvements in his
country— most, it is true, for his own, and not for his people's,
Digitized by
Google
!8930 NIZAAPS VISIT TO INDIA. 361
benefit, for Nizam, like most Oriental rulers, was a very selfish
man ; but even then their adoption would have done much
good in the country, by showing the people some higher
standard, either of comfort or convenience, to which they might
aspire. He had already begun to improve his house, and he
was most anxious to get a few native masons up from India
to teach his people to build properly, and, with the marble which
is to be obtained within a few miles from Chitral, to build a
good house for himself. He wanted his men taught blasting,
too, so as to be able to construct watercourses by which new
lands could be irrigated, and he was always asking me if I
could not have up some one to drive artesian wells to irrigate
a large plain above Chitral. With a British officer beside him,
therefore, to advise him, and keep him from branching out
into any useless expenditure, he might have done much good
work.
In dealings between him and the British Government much
good accrued from his visit to India. The great art in dealing
with these wild chiefs is to guide them and make use of them
without actually employing force. The British Government
does not wish to destroy their independence, and, in fact, would
be only too pleased if they were really strong enough to be
absolutely independent But they are not, and never could be,
strong enough for this ; and, as they are the neighbours of a
great empire, the rulers of that empire have to ask certain things
of them, the chief of which, as I stated above, is that they
should place their foreign relations under the control of the
suzerain Pbwer. Nizam had been to India, he knew the re-
sources of Government, and he knew that his interests lay in
the preservation of a close alliance with the British. He, there-
fore, always acted with that object. By far the larger number
of his people did not, however, know the real strength of
Government, and when Nizam was murdered at the beginning
of 189s, they rashly plunged their country into a war with
Digitized by
Google
362 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xvii.
the British, and, of course, suffered for it A number of them>
whom I met in Chitral just after the war was over, told me
that, had they known that we were so powerful, they never
would have thought of fighting us. But they did not know,
and both they and we had to suffer the consequence of their
ignorance. I always think these chiefs are rather in the position
of children. We do not want to beat them or cow them. We
want them rather to grow up strong and vigorous, and, perhaps,
to become eventually able to look after their own affairs them-
selves. But we have to keep them straight, and, when they
run crooked, we have to punish them. To have an effective
influence over them it is necessary that we should make our
resources known to them, that they may be fully aware of
the advantages of keeping on friendly terms with us, and the
evil effects which are likely to follow from their going astray.
With Nizam-ul-Mulk I never found any difficulty in the
discharge of my duties, and, as by his astuteness and common
sense I was saved from the necessity of ever having to make
any disagreeable demand upon him, when the British agency
was subsequently withdrawn from Chitral to Mastuj, he kept
repeatedly asking that it might be sent back to Chitral again,
so that he might have a British officer at his side.
But while Nizam and his men interested themselves with
what we did in India, I was no less interested in noting how
they lived in Chitral, and one of the points which I most
carefully observed was their system of government. This
system is absolutely despotic. There could scarcely be a
greater despot than a Mehtar of Chitral. Nominally, every-
thing in the country — man, women, child, and beast — belong to
him, and the whole of the land, and every house as well. He
can take away one man's wife and give her to another. He
can dispose of the daughters to whom he likes. He can give
away a man's house or his land just as he wishes. And he can,
of course, administer any sort of punishment that may please
Digitized by
Google
1893.] FORM OF GOVERNMENT, 365
him. In addition to this, he may call upon any men to serve
him, and he may summon the whole country, if he so wishes,,
to go to war. All this he may do theoretically. Practically,
of course, by custom and by public opinion, he has to keep the
exercise of this authority within reasonable bounds. Still I
have known cases of wives being given away when the husbands
have committed some offence, this being considered a punish-
ment to the husband alone, and the woman being supposed
to have no feelings.
The method by which the Mehtar carries on his government
is by durbars, and as this is a very interesting form of govern-
ment, and one of which the original simplicity is likely ta
disappear as the country comes in closer touch with British
method, I wish to draw especial attention to it Twice every
day the Mehtar holds durbar ; the morning durbar is at about
eleven or twelve o'clock, and a second is held at ten o'clock at
night. In the summer-time the morning durbar was regularly
held under the huge plane trees round the fort, but frequently
Nizam-ul-Mulk held them somewhere along the river-bank
where he was hawking or shooting. The evening durbar was
held in a hall or room inside the fort. At these durbars the
Mehtar sat with his legs crossed on a broad low seat, which
serves as a sort of throne, the members of his family sat near
him, and the other principal men range themselves in a semi-
circle in from of him, every one except the Mehtar squatting
on the floor. A few guards and servants were stationed behind
the Mehtar. There are no very formal proceedings, though
very strict etiquette is observed in many particulars. The
Mehtar comes out of his private apartments, and is followed
to the durbar hall by his attendants ; then he seats himself, the
people squat down after him, and informal conversation com-
mences. Perhaps some one has come in from the frontier or
the provinces, and the Mehtar asks what the news is. Whatever
news there may be the Mehtar discusses with the principal men.
Digitized by
Google
364 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvii.
-and they give their opinion about it. Then some one who has
a case to bring before the Mehtar for his decision will advance,
kiss his feet, and state his case. The people at the upper end
-of the watercourse of his village have taken all the water, and
left none for his lands in the lower part of the village. The
Mehtar turns to the durbar and asks if any one knows about
this. Some men from the village will then say what they
know ; a conversation about the matter will follow ; then the
Mehtar will give orders as he thinks fit, and the matter is there
and then disposed of. No record of any case is kept, but, as
every case is decided in full durbar, there is generally some
one present who remembers former decisions ; and, cases being
usually simple and not very numerous, it is possible to ad-
minister justice satisfactorily on these primitive lines, both civil
and criminal cases being disposed of in this manner.
While these conversational trials are being carried on, dinner
is brought in on a number of trays and dishes, some special
dishes being laid before the Mehtar, and the remainder being
placed before the men in durbar. Just a few members of the
Mehtar's family, whose rank is undeniable, are permitted to eat
from the same dish with him ; the rest eat out of the common
dishes placed round the durbar. The meals consist of bread,
rice, and stews of meat ; in the summer fruit is served round,
and the Mehtar and a few principal men have tea. No spirituous
liquor of any kind is served, for the people are Mohammedans.
The food is taken up with the fingers, water being handed
round before and after the meal for washing the hands.
All the time the dinner is being eaten, the Mehtar is
quietly disposing of affairs ; conversation about the cases before
him is kept up, and, perhaps with his mouth full, he will
give his decision in the matter. Often, when Nizam-ul-Mulk
held his durbars by the river, or on a shooting-expedition, a
man would rush up to say there were some duck by the water,
or markhor on the mountain-side, and the Mehtar and his men
Digitized by
Google
18930 THE MEHTAR AND HIS ADVISERS. 365
would jump up in wild excitement and go off with their hawks
and their rifles, and leave the affairs of state to look after
themselves.
All this seems very irregular, but the system has many good
points about it, the chief of which is that the ruler and people
see each other face to face, and know each other man to man.
There is an excellent custom in Chitral, by which every man of
importance in the country is expected to come down to the
capital to attend these durbars for at least a couple of months
every year, and each village has to send a contingent to serve
the Mehtar, either in his guard or in some household capacity.
An ebb and flow of men from the provinces to the capital is
thus set up, and every man of any note becomes intimately
acquainted with the Mehtar and the Mehtar with him, and the
greater number of the lower classes also come to know their
ruler personally. So intimately, indeed, does the Mehtar in
this way become acquainted with his men, that I found Nizam-ul-
Mulk knew the name, the personal history, and the character of
nearly every man in his country. Since he was a small boy
he had attended his father's durbars, and so, seeing year after
year the relays of men coming to attend them, he had got to
know every man of any position, and most of the common
people as well. This personal intimacy between the ruler and
the ruled, and the method by which the ruler administers justice
and governs his country face to face with his people, and not
by deputy and by paper, are really good points in the system
of government in Chitral. I have related how despotic is the
authority of this Mehtar, but the reader will see that by this
system of durbars the people also have a voice in the conduct
of the affairs of the country, and it would be impossible for a
ruler to go far against the wishes of his people.
Though the Mehtar has so absolute authority, he is bound
to consult, and perhaps even defer to, the wishes of the
Adamzadas, or nobles, for he is not so much the ruler over a
Digitized by
Google
366 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvii.
number of inferior people as the chief of a number of chiefs, who
have each their own train of followers. In old days Chitral was
split up into a number of little chieftainships. The villages are
all separated from each other by strips of barren land, and nearly
^very village, and, at any rate, every valley, had its separate chief.
In the course of time these were federated together under the
chief of the village of Chitral. He was to be the head chief, and
would lead them all in war, for instance ; but it was understood
that each separate chief had rule over his own followers.
Gradually, however, the power of the lesser chiefs dwindled,
and that of the Chitral chief, or Mehtar, increased. But even
now there are traces of the original state of affairs, and the
Adamzadas, the descendants of these minor chiefs, are very
jealous of the remnants of authority still left them, and often
oppose the orders of the Mehtar. They are now, indeed, a very
unsatisfactory element of the Chitral state. They have little
authority, but an immense idea of their importance, and they
consider it necessary to stand upon their dignity on every
possible occasion. They are sullenly hostile to every Mehtar,
and jealous of his authority, and I have even known some of
them refuse to turn their men out to resist an invasion of the
country. The greater part of them are thoroughly hostile to
the British alliance, because they have heard that the British
treat rich and poor, small and great, exactly alike, and attach
no importance to rank. They therefore fear that, as British
influence increases in the state, their power will still further
diminish, and they especially fear that their followers, who are
on much the same footing as the serfs were in Russia, will,
under the pressure of British influence, gain more freedom, till
they become independent of them. However much, therefore,
the Mehtar may realize that his position depends upon the
closeness of his alliance with the British Government, he has
always to contend against the sullen opposition of these effete
remnants of a bygone age.
Digitized by
Google
1893.] THE GENERAL COUNCIL. 367
I have said that the Mehtar has to consult the feelings of
these Adamzadas. On all important occasions, beside those
who may happen to be in Chitral at the time, the principal
Adamzadas throughout the country, and perhaps also the
governors of the various districts (except the distant districts
of Yasin) are summoned to Chitral, and the Mehtar holds a
general council of state. Such councils are held when an invasion
takes place, or when it is proposed to attack some neighbouring
country, or when questions of foreign policy arise, such as
whether the state should ally itself with the British Government
or with Afghanistan. On occasions like these, all the chief
men in the country would be asked down to Chitral, and the
matter discussed in durbar. I was particularly struck by the
openness with which the affairs of the country are discussed.
While we make a great mystery of our policy, and conduct
our business by confidential correspondence, the members of
one department of Government not letting even the members
of another department know what is taking place, in Chitral
the affairs of state are discussed openly in durbar, and it is only
very confidential matters that the Mehtar talks over separately
with a few of his most trusted advisers. So little indeed do
the Chitralis resort to secrecy, that several times I have known
the Mehtar, when a letter has been brought him, and his own
clerk was not present, hand it over to my native assistant, and
ask him to read the contents to him.
Out of the general assembly the Mehtar naturally, and as it
were involuntarily, selects certain men whom he trusts and
consults more than the rest If they live at a distance from
Chitral, he will summon them oftener, and keep them longer.
If they live at Chitral, he will have them repeatedly by his side.
An informal cabinet council thus exists, and these men might
be called "his Majesty's advisers." It is possible to trace in
the council of Chitral, as in councils of men of every kind,
the progressive and the stationary parties ; the men who wish
Digitized by
Google
368 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvii.
to see improvements brought in — who would, for instance, like
to have roads made through the country, the telegraph brought
in, and the men properly armed and drilled ; and the men who>
arguing that what was good enough for their fathers is good
enough for them, are opposed to innovations of every kind.
These latter, in Chitral, are in the majority. A shudder of
horror went through the country when the late Mehtar, Nizam^
one day took it into his head to give his wives and female
relations a treat in the country, and had a picnic for them up
the river. " No Mehtar had ever done such a thing before!" the
people said. " So why should this one make such a change ? "
We see, then, a state with the fully developed system of
government of modern European countries here still in embryo.
The control is imperfect Governors are appointed to the
outlying provinces of the state, and these exercise a very
independent authority. There is no elaborate system of
reporting to the central authority, and very little reference to
it As I have said few men in the country can read or write,,
so correspondence is reduced to a minimum. For several
months the Governor of Mastuj, where I was stationed, had
no one by him who could read, and on the few occasions on
which he did receive letters, he brought them round to my
clerk to read for him. It might be imagined that, where there
is so little connection with the central authority, the outlying
provinces would gradually drop off and become independent
But there is in Chitral an excellent method by which just
sufficient touch is kept up between the capital and the provinces
to ensure the integrity of the country. Every now and then
the governors have to come in to Chitral itself, to pay their
respects to the Mehtar, and in this way, and in the manner
already noticed, by which all the notables and a certain number
of the poorer classes have to come in to Chitral every year,,
the Mehtar is kept in touch with all parts of his dominion.
This, briefly, is the system of government in Chitral as
Digitized by
Google
1893.] BRITISH AND CHITRALI ADMINISTRATION. 369
I knew it, and I think a very remarkable point to note in the
practical working of the system is the rapidity and directness
with which affairs are carried on. This, to an official working
under the ponderous Government of India, seems as remarkable
as the deliberate movements of the elephantine British Govern-
ment appear to the Chitralis. The largest question that affects
their state they can settle in a few days. Though they have
no telegraphs, they can, in cases of urgent importance, send
messages at the rate of sixty miles a day. The whole country
can spring to arms at a moment's notice, and hundreds of men
be moving to the frontier at twenty miles and more a day,
a few hours after they receive the order. I have known a
governor more than sixty, years of age ride his sixty-five
miles into Chitral with a large following on foot, in a couple
of days. No time is wasted in useless correspondence ; there
are no records to be referred to; the matter is discussed and
settled there and then, ^man to man, and action immediately
follows. People accustomed to rapid decisions and immediate
action of this kind are unable, therefore, to understand why
the* British Government, with its telegraphs and its thousands
of troops kept permanently ready for action, should be so
slow moving. A question arises upon which the decision of
Government is required, the agent in Chitral says he will
refer it to the agent in Gilgit, the agent in Gilgit refers to the
Resident in Kashmir, he again to the Government of India,
and they to the Secretary of State ; and back through all these
channels comes the answer, months after the question first
arose. " With all your telegraphs, why cannot you get answers
quicker?" is what the Chitralis were always saying to me. And
then the action seems so slow to them. They are astonished
at the force of the blow when it does come, but if a blow is
to come at all, why does it not come sooner? If, for instance.
Government did not intend to allow Umra Khan to take
Chitral in the winter of 1894-95, why did not they oppose
2 B
Digitized by
Google
370 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xvii.
him at once, in January, when he first invaded the country,
instead of months later, in April ? With all their organization
and rapid means of communication, their telegraphs, railways,
and roads, Government, as the Chitralis think, ought to be
more, not less, prompt in decision and rapid in action than
themselves ; and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that
they fret and chafe under the indecisive answers which British
officers often have to give them, and that they sometimes
go running off with the bit between their teeth.
Fuller knowledge modified my first impression of the
character of the Chitralis. On first entering the country in
the depth of winter, and when the people were panting after
the recent struggles for the Mehtarship, I found them, as I
have already stated, anything but attractive. They then had
a gloomy, depressed appearance, which repelled one from
them, and it was not till the spring and summer came on
that they showed any brightness at ^11. But I saw them at
their best, and, as I believe, in their natural state, in the autumn
of 1893, when I went for a tour through the country with
the Mehtar. I then took no escort with me, and travelled
with him more as a private guest than as a Government official.
We rode along together the whole of each march, which, with
halts for hawking, occupied the entire day, and in the evenings,
after I had had my dinner, the Mehtar would come to my
tent and talk sometimes till midnight The Mehtar was
accompanied by a large number of followers, and was met at
each village by every man in it; in the country, moreover,
much of the formality and etiquette of the capital wore off,
and I was able to see the ruler and his people in their natural
life.
The Mehtar was on this occasion in the very best of spirits*
No man could more thoroughly enjoy himself than Nizam-ul-
Mulk. He had little courage or strength of character, but
he at any rate knew how to enjoy life, and I picture him now
Digitized by
Google
1893.] NIZAM'S LOVE OF SPORT, 371
riding along on a comfortable, easy-going pony, with his leg
thrown lazily over the high peak of the saddle, as he grew
tired of riding astride, his falconers all about him ready to
fly a hawk at anything which might appear, while he now
and then turned round to his brothers, saying, " See how lucky
I am ! I have all that my father had, and have no trouble in
looking after it, for Government sees that I am not attacked.
I can go out hawking and shooting just as much as ever I
please, and enjoy myself as I like." He was passionately fond
of sport of all kinds, and as we rode through the country
together he was constantly pointing up the hill-sides and telling
me how he had shot ibex or markhor there. "A splendid d^^Y
I had there ! " he would say, and give a story of some great
shoot he had had. He was also about the best polo-player in
the country. All day long he used to talk of his shooting
experiences, and then he would tell us that in the following
year he was going to take me to another part of his country,
and then I must take him to England. He said he would like
to go as the guest of Government, as he was when he went
to India ; but, anyhow, he meant to go, and if Government
would not invite him, he would save up money and go himself.
Then, in the evening, as he sat in my tent with a few of his
most trusted men, he would talk on every possible subject,
and I was astonished to note his quick intelligence, his receptive
memory, and his insatiable curiosity. He used to ask about
our system of government, and I would tell him of Parliament
and of the two great parties in the state ; how Mr. Gladstone
would be in power at one time, and Lord Salisbury at another.
He at first thought this was a bad system, as it looked as if
the country was split into two ; but when I explained to him
how the two parties kept balancing each other, the one
preventing things going too fast, and the other seeing that
they went fast enough, then he said he understood why it
was we kept progressing so steadily. Asiatics have only one
Digitized by
Google
372 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap. xvii.
idea of greatness : to them that country is the greatest which
conquers most ; and he knew the history of how we had advanced
up from Calcutta and gradually conquered the whole of India.
In regard to the people, I found them as gay and cheerful
as could be, now that their harvest was in, and the question
of the Mehtarship was apparently settled. At each village we
arrived at, crowds would come out to meet the Mehtar, a band
played in the cavalcade, and, if a halt was to be made, there
would certainly be polo, firing at the popinjay, or dancing.
The Chitralis love amusement Gloominess is not their natural
trait at all ; and, when they can be seen free from restraint, there
is something very attractive about them. All day, as we rode
along on the march, they used to be chaffing and laughing,
and they are then as wild and simple and careless as children.
We were crossing a pass one day ; it was over thirteen thousand
feet high, and snow was falling heavily the whole way over ;
but when a man came up to say there were some ibex (wild
goats) in a neighbouring valley, they all wanted to go off
after the ibex, although doing so would have meant sleeping
out on the pass without tents. Whenever news of any sport
like this reaches them, they all shout with excitement, and
become as keen about it as a boy. On this occasion the ibex
disappeared before we got up to them, so we proceeded over
the pass, and waited at the foot of it, on the opposite side,
for the baggage to come up. The Mehtar had a couple of
hundred men with him, but only he had a tent, and as there
was no village, they had to sleep in the open. A huge fire
was lighted, and we all sat round in a circle till the Mehtar's
and my tent arrived, and, in spite of the snow and the cold,
I never saw men more cheery. Then, as we marched on down
the Turikho valley the next few days, at each village, as we
approached, the heights were lined with matchlock-men firing
a rude feu de joie, and all the principal men and the Mehtar
and I would join in a wild game of polo, every one galloping
Digitized by
Google
1893.] IMPULSIVENESS OF CHITRALIS, 373
furiously about, quite regardless of everybody else, shouting
with excitement, reaching far out of the saddle to hit the ball,
running into each other, and enjoying themselves thoroughly.
In camp, and on the march, these men used often to talk
over British officers, and I was astonished to note the keen
interest they took in everything a British officer did, and what-
ever he did was always reported in exaggerated terms. Men
would come in who had seen the British officers at Gilgit, or at
the posts on the road between Chitral and Gilgit, and they
would be questioned closely as to what they were like, and what
they were doing. If they had done anything to the satisfaction
of the Chitralis, these impressionable people would become
excessive in their praises of the officer. If the officer had done
something to offend them, they would unreasonably denounce
him. Chitralis are always in extremes, never in the middle.
They are a people eminently needing and liking a leader.
They hate — and this is a very common characteristic of Asiatics
— to have to act for themselves. They want some one to tell
them what to do, and they will be only too glad to follow
him. In the recent campaign they got in a huff with the English,
and rushed off in their extreme impulsive way against them.
They thought they saw in Sher Afzul a man who could lead
them ; they swarmed round him, begging to be led. Such people
it ought not to be difficult for us to deal with. They have no
inherent love of fighting merely for fighting's sake, as the
Afghan tribes have. They fight when their country is attacked,
and they fight in a desultory, half-hearted sort of way, in the
usual fratricidal struggles for the throne which regularly
occur on the death of a Mehtar. But they would much prefer
stopping at home, eating fruit in their shady orchards, playing
polo, and watching dancing. And as long as their old and
cherished customs are not interfered with, and as long as they
are not too much worried to carry loads and furnish supplies,
they will remain contented.
Digitized by
Google
374 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap. xvil.
But one innovation must certainly come with the presence
of the British in the country : they will be taught the value and
the need of money. I once asked a Chitrali why all the men
of a certain valley, in a remote part of Chitral, were so much
better, more loyal, and of simpler manners than the other
Chitralis. He replied that they were so because they were
off the main line of traffic, and no strangers and traders from
outside came to corrupt them, make them buy things they did
not want, and cause them to be discontented because they had
not the things the traders brought round. In other parts of
Chitral the people were exposed to all these temptations, and
were corrupted by them. It seems hard to break in on the
simplicity of such a people, and teach them a lust for wealth.
But if a desire for money may bring with it some disadvantages,
it cannot but contribute also to the strengthening of the
character of the people. In some of these upper valleys the
inhabitants had, until recently, no idea of the use or value of
money. They had few wants. Their fields produced what they
required in the way of food, and the wool from their sheep
supplied them with material from which they could weave their
clothing. If a man had need of a coat, he would give another a
sheep or some corn for it What, therefore, did they want with
the round pieces of silver called rupees ? They could use them
as ornaments, but for anything else they were useless. But
they have gradually been learning that with these rupees they
can buy cotton goods, salt, looking-glasses, matches, iron
implements, knives, scissors, needles, etc., from traders; and
so they begin to want rupees.
A man walked more than sixty miles once to see me, and
sat down on the ground while I was at breakfast in the garden,
and then suddenly jumped up, kissed my feet, and said he had
come all the way to ask me for five rupees. I said I would be
very glad to give him five rupees, if he would go up the hillside
and cut some firewood for me. He said he could not stay away
Digitized by
Google
1893] HATRED OF WORK. 375
from his home, and had to go back the next day. I told him
that in that case I would give him the five rupees, but when I
came to his village in a month's time, I should expect him
to do work for me there, in return for the money. He went
off with the rupees, delighted. But, an hour or two afterwards,
returned with them, gave them back to me, and said he would
not take them, as he did not like to have to do the work.
That is just the fault of the Chitralis — they hate work. They
love to enjoy themselves, but they hate having to exert them-
selves. And if the introduction of trade into their country
can induce them to want rupees, and if they can appreciate
that to get rupees they have to work, a stimulus will have
been given them which must be beneficial. One of the greatest
difficulties which British officers, in countries like Chitral, have
to contend with is this lack of inducement to work. Roads
have to be constructed, supplies have to be carried, work of
all kinds has to be done, but the difficulty is to obtain the
workers. There are numbers of men about, but they do not
want to work, they much prefer being lefl alone ; and in many
cases they have to be compelled to work, even though they are
liberally paid for what they do. Among people of this dis-
position it is absolutely necessary to instil a wholesome love of
money, and as they come to appreciate its value and its uses,
they will work more readily, become less lazy, and obtain the
means of clothing and feeding themselves better, and of
improving their houses. And this incentive to work, and the
improvement of their environment, cannot fail to have some
good effect upon their characters. As they come to work
harder and more regularly, it may be expected that they will
become less impulsive and more steady and trustworthy.
And if this much can be obtained, good, and not harm, will
have resulted from instilling into these simple people the love
of money.
Every one who has seen them in their present primitive
Digitized by
Google
376 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xvii.
state, however, must hope that it may never fall to their lot
to be swallowed up in the flood of British administration, and
that they may have rulers of sufficient ability to preserve to
the country its independence. While the state is ruled by one
of the old reigning family, the British officers can exercise
over it a useful and beneficial influence, give character to the
people, and infuse vigour into them.
In October of the year 1894, after making a tour down
from Mastuj, which had then become my head-quarters, to
Chitral, in the company of Mr. George Curzon, I left the
country thinking never to see it again. Nizam-ul-Mulk, the
Mehtar, had given Mr. Curzon and myself the warmest possible
welcome at his capital. We had played polo together, and
dined together, and he rode up some miles with us to say
good-bye. Everything seemed as quiet as it ever can be in
these volcanic countries of Central Asia. But not three months
had passed when Nizam was murdered by his own half-brother,
and trouble after trouble followed, till the British agent was
besieged in Chitral fort, two detachments sent up, and a relief
expedition on a large scale had become necessary. I again
visited Chitral, this time as special correspondent of the Times ^
and arrived there a week after the siege had been raised. But
the history of these events has been treated of separately,
and I will here close the narrative of my travels, adding only
a chapter or two on a few general impressions I formed in
carrying them out.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MISSIONARY QUESTION IN CHINA.
" I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause."
COWPBR.
Before recording the general impressions formed in my
mind in the course of my travels, I am anxious to say
something on the subject of missionary enterprise in China,,
because I have thought that a few words on this question
from one who has seen missionaries at work in the remotest
comers of the Chinese Empire may be of interest to readers
in England at the present time, when the recent massacres in
China have directed marked attention to the matter. I do
not think that a mere casual traveller like myself ought to-
presume to judge in too assured a way the many really
earnest men who, taking their lives in their hands, have gone
out to impart to the Chinese a religion which they believe
would help to elevate and rouse those ignorant of its blessings.
Many of these men have devoted years to the study of the
question, and they have had practical experience in dealing
with the Chinese. It would ill befit a passing traveller,,
therefore, to undertake to say whether this or that method
of proselytizing was good or the reverse, or to judge whether
the missionaries have been successful or not.
But it is part of the duty of a traveller to observe and
Digitized by
Google
378 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
record his observations for what they are worth for the
benefit of those who are not so fortunate as himself in being
able to penetrate to little-visited regions. And perhaps the
impressions formed by one who has now had a varied
experience of dealing with peoples of other religions than
his own may not only be of interest to the people at home,
but may also prove of some help to the workers on the spot
These latter will, at any rate, know that interest is taken in
their work, and if criticism is sometimes hostile, they will
remember that it is only by criticism and opposition that high
standards ever are kept up. If no interest was shown in the
work, if the traveller merely passed by on the other side,
and never recorded a single impression of it, and if no criticism
were ever offered, assuredly the standard would lower, the zeal
w^ould flag, and listlessness come on.
I may say at once, then, that my sympathies are entirely
with the missionaries, and having seen the noble men I have
met with in the far interior of China, and realized the
sacrifices they have made, I say that the hearts of all true
Englishmen and of all true Christian nations ought to go out
to encouraging and helping those who have given up everything
in this life to do good to others. I only wish that those who
from the prosperous, comfortable homes of their native country
so severely criticize missionary enterprise, could see one of
those splendid French missionaries whom I met in North
Manchuria, and who had gone out there for his life and would
never see his home again. I feel sure that any fair-minded
Englishman would see that this was a real man — a man to
whom his sympathies might truly go out, and who was really
likely to contribute to the elevation of the human race.
All missionaries are not of this same high standard. But
because some missionaries have found their strength inadequate
for the task before them, and have discovered that the fire of
enthusiasm has died out in the clear light of everyday life,
Digitized by
Google
xviii.] TRUE AND FALSE MISSIONARIES, 379
till they remain but burnt-out lamps by the way, it does not
follow that the great Christian work of helping others is to
be abandoned, and hundreds of English men and women
asked to return home and acknowledge that the work to
which they had devoted their lives, and for which their fathers
before them had spent and often sacrificed their lives, was not
worth doing.
Surely the true spirit of the English nation is one of
sympathy with brave men who risk their lives as freely and
fearlessly as any soldier for what they believe to be the
good and right. Turn away those who have flagged by the
wayside, and show the contempt for them that they deserve ;
but do not let the work of the true missionaries be allowed
to suffer and be despised because of these. Readers who have
followed me through these pages will have seen that good
work is Jbeing done by the missionaries in some places at
least, and let missionary enterprise be judged by the achieve-
ments of such men as these, and not simply of those who,
living on the fringes of civilization, enjoying all its luxuries
and comforts, and devoting but a fraction of their time to
true missionary work, have deserved the sneers which have
been thrown at them. These latter are the men who are
most commonly met with, and the real workers are usually
only seen by the few travellers who penetrate inland. But
It is no more right to judge by these faint-hearted ones of the
whole work done by missionaries, than it is to judge of an
army in the field by the men who, from physical unfitness or
known lack of energy, have been left behind at the base.
Nor should the work of missionaries be judged of by
statistics of converts. Statistics are utterly valueless in cases of
this sort It is impossible to define, in the first place, what
a convert is. The usual idea is that a man becomes a convert
when he is baptized ; but I have known a dying man baptized
without his knowing anything about it, and surely he could
Digitized by
Google
38o THE HEART OF A CONTINENT, [chap.
not be claimed as a convert ! Conversion means the changed
state of the whole person ; and the whole person, especially
when he is a stolid Chinaman, changes very slowly indeed, so
that it is impossible to say exactly when and where he has
become a new man. I think, then, that those who have had
most to do with peoples of other religions than the Christian,
and have realized how difficult and slow the change from one
state to another must be — and how valueless, if ever it is effected
rapidly — will have the least faith in any mere statistics of
converts to Christianity.
But, on the other hand, men who have studied the whole
effect of Christianity upon European civilization, and have
traced the first germ, planted nearly two thousand years ago,
growing and expanding, till it influenced all the nations of
Europe ; — those who compare the state of society before that
germ was implanted, with the state of society at the present
day, have recognized what marvellous good the Christian
religion has done. Men may not agree as to the truth of
many of the doctrines which have become encrusted on to the
central truth and essence of Christianity, but all can see the
truth and force of the primary Christian doctrine of love
toward their neighbour. And the results of the infusing of
this principle into the human race are evident in the increased
amount of sympathy displayed by European nations.
A well-informed writer in the Times^ in the winter of 1894-95^
stated that in London alone the amount annually given for
charity by contributions, by legacies, and by the interest on
legacies, did not fall far short of twenty million sterling. Every
Christian country has numbers of benevolent institutions for
the sick, the aged, the orphans, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the
dumb, the weak-minded, and the fallen. And not for men and
women only, but for horses, dogs and cats, and other domestic
pets. Contrasted with the state of feeling one notices in Asiatic
countries at the present day, there is. too, among Christians, a
Digitized by
Google
XVIII.] ASIATICS AND THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT. 381
markedly deeper sensitiveness to suffering or oppression in any
form. Such barbarities as those of the recent Armenian
atrocities are thought little of among Asiatics. Through the
Christian nations in Europe and America they send a thrill of
horror, and the sympathy evoked for the sufferers shows itself
in the practical form of active measures for preventing such
atrocities for the future. We have, agajn, the case of one
Christian nation spending millions of pounds to release slaves
owned by its subjects. Sympathy is, of course, not unknown
in Asiatic countries, and the devotion with which the natives
of India provide for their old or infirm relations is worthy
of all praise. But I think that every one who looks at an
Asiatic nation, as a whole, and at a Christian nation, will
agree that, in the latter, the sympathetic feelings are far more
highly developed generally.
If, then, European nations have in the main derived so much
benefit from the adoption of the Christian religion from one of
the peoples of Asia, surely they are justified in trying to impart
it to peoples of another part of the same continent And they
are not only justified in doing so, but it is human nature that
they should. Christians cannot help feeling, when they are
brought in contact with men of other religions, that they have
a higher and truer idea of the Deity, and of their relations
to the Deity — which is religion — than have the devotees of any
other religion. They see that that portion of the human race
which has embraced the Christian religion has progressed more
than any other, and they naturally desire to impart to others
those doctrines which they feel have done so much good to
themselves. This is a natural and reasonable feeling, and is
the mainspring of all missionary enterprise.
It is, however, in the method of imparting their own con-
victions to those who profess other religions, that some
missionaries may be criticized. There are some whom we
might call fanatical missionaries, who imagine that the Christian
Digitized by
Google
382 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
religion, with all the doubtful doctrines which have been hung
on to it — as such doctrines do hang on to religions of every
type, as time goes on — is all right, and that every other religion
is all wrong. In uncompromising language they denounce the
religion which differs from their own, and all that is connected
with it They tell men who have been brought up from their
childhood in it — and.whose fathers, for hundreds, and perhaps
thousands, of years before them, have believed thfe truth of it
— that they are to be damned eternally ; that all they believe
is wrong; and that unless they can believe in doctrinal
Christianity, they will not be saved. Assertions like this,
delivered by men very often of little culture, and little know-
ledge of the world and of human nature, naturally invite
hostility. Mohammedans, 'Buddhists, Confucianists, feel that
there is some right in what they profess, and they resent a
stranger, who very often is ignorant of what the tenets of their
religion really are, denouncing them, and trying to force his
own ideas so rudely upon them. And these " heathen " have
reason. Students of their religions say that, in many points,
these coincide with the Christian ; and, from experience among
Mohammedans and Buddhists, I can say that, practically, in
their lives they often work on very Christian-like principles.
I have found, too, at least among Mohammedans, that such
general principles as doing to others as one would be done by
one's self, and the existence of a Deity ruling the universe, are
thoroughly understood and appreciated, though the means for
acting up to them are not always available.
Europeans who have lived in these strange lands, perhaps
for years, away from their own church — among people of a
different religion to their own ; people whom they have been
accustomed to hear spoken of as heathen, and, consequently,
destined for eternal punishment — find themselves taking note
of these men, observing their natures, and studying the kind
of life they lead. And when it is found that the followers of
Digitized by
Google
xviii.] UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION. 385
one religion after another lead lives not so clearly worse than
the lives led by Christians, as to merit all the distinction of
punishment between hell and heaven ; when it is found, too,
that the follower of each of these religions is just as sure as
the Christian is that his particular religion is the true one,
and all others false, then the Christian stranger begins to
question whether he is wholly right in regarding the "heathen"
as only destined for damnation, and their religion as so utterly
wrong.
At the same time the truth gradually dawns upon him
that religion is universal, and an essential part of human nature.
Of the truth of this I have been deeply impressed upon my
travels. I remember the rude Mongols, far away in the midst
of the Gobi Desert, setting apart in their tents the little altar
at which they worshipped. I recall nights spent in the tents
of the wandering Kirghiz, when the family of an evening would
say their prayers together ; I think of the Afghan and Central
Asian merchants visiting me in Yarkand, and in the middle
of their visits asking to be excused while they laid down a
cloth on the floor and repeated their prayers ; of the late
Mehtar of Chitral, during a morning's shooting among the
mountains, halting, with all his court, for a few minutes to
pray; and, lastly, of the wild men of Hunza, whom I had
led up a new and difficult pass, pausing as they reached the
summit to offer a prayer of thanks, and ending with a shout
of "Allah!"
In all these there was a religious sentiment deeply rooted.
They all shared the feeling that there was some Great Spirit
or Influence guiding and ruling all things, and that in some
indefinable way they were dependent on this Spirit This
feeling, which is religion, is universal, and has developed with
the development of the human race. It seems to have been
implanted in the mind of man as life was breathed into his
body. And as I have watched the workings and the results
Digitized by
Google
384 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
of this feeling in its different forms, and examined the effects
and tried to judge of the value of the different religions, I
have come to look upon them as so many progressive steps
in the development of the religious idea — that is, of the
religious feeling in the human race ; as so many steps in the
development upwards, of which it is by no means certain that
the highest has yet been reached.
If, then, we can argue, from the universality of the religious
idea in man, that religion is essential to the human race; if
we can trust the universal feeling that there is some Spirit —
call that Spirit what we will — ^ruling the Universe and guiding
the development of the human race ; — then it is only reasonable
to believe that, as the race grows older and accumulates
experience, and as other faculties develop, so this religious
feeling will develop also, and the conception of the Deity
and of the relations of man to the Deity enlarge itself. The
traveller through strange countries sees that the various forms
of religion professed by separate peoples only differ in d^ree
of truth, that none are wholly false, and that all have the
same foundation of belief in a Power governing and influencing
all men.
He can no longer believe that the Christian religion is
so far superior to the Buddhist or the Mohammedan religion ;
that the Christian is to go to heaven, while the "heathen" is
to go to hell He cannot help recognizing that there is some-
thing in the Christian religion vastly superior to others, but
he sees that these latter have much that is good and true in
them also. The feeling, then, that is begotten from reflecting
on all this, is that those who desire to be leaders in a religion,
and to gain adherents to it, must study in a sympathetic
manner the religions of others. They must do this, and it
cannot be doubted that cultured men, living true and noble
lives, must be able to influence those around them. Be they
professed missionaries or be they simple Christian men and
Digitized by
Google
xviii.] THE LEAVEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 385
women, be they in their own or in a strange country, men
of culture and learning, who do their best to carry out in
their daily lives the precepts which they know to be good,
will be able slowly to raise the moral standard of those
among whom they live, and give those who are more ignorant
a higher conception of the Deity and of the relation of man
to the Deity. They will be able to disabuse the untutored
of the gross ideas of God which are so often formed— of such
ideas, for instance, as that of an inhuman monster who is
prepared to consign to eternal torture of the most barbarous
description those whose faults are so trivial as not to meet
with special punishment even here on earth ; and by the daily
example of well-lived lives they will be able to afford an
ideal which cannot but be helpful to those who would wish
to practise the precepts which they know so well are true, but
only so difficult to carry out in daily life.
This is what the best missionaries really are doing in
China, and have been doing for years and years. Little effect
may have been produced in so short a time as a couple of
centuries upon over three hundred millions of the most
stationary and unimpressionable race in the world. But that
was to be expected. In the first two centuries after Christ
only the most infinitesimal effect had been produced upon
Europe, and it would have been perfectly marvellous if in
•so short a time any great effect had been produced upon
so vast and hard a mass as China; but that some effect is
being produced I can vouch for from personal experience. I
can testify to the fact that, living quietly and unostentatiously
in the interior of China, there are men who, by their lives of
noble self-sacrifice and sterling good, are slowly influencing
those about them ; men who have so influenced not only a
few, but many thousands of these unenthusiastic Chinese, as
to cause them to risk life itself for their religion. And if this
good work is going on, if Christians are willing to give up
2 C
Digitized by
Google
386 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap, xviii.
all they hold most dear in this life to help others forward,
then is this not worthy of support ? — not the support of force,
for even the missionaries do not desire that, but the support
to be afforded by the encouragement of their fellow-Christians.
The slothful, the ignorant, and the foolhardy may well be
criticized, and the missionary cause will only be advanced
if such criticism has the effect of stirring them to increased
and more discreet activity. But the true missionary, the
man who devotes his life to the work of imparting to
other races the religion from which his own has derived so
much benefit ; who carefully trains himself for this work ; who
sympathetically studies the religion, the character, and the
peculiarities of the people he wishes to convert ; and who
practically lives a life which those about him can see to be
good ; — should be admired as the highest type of manhood,
and it is he for whom I should wish to enlist the sympathies
of my fellow-countrymen in this grave crisis of the missionary
cause.
Digitized by
Google
CHAPTER XIX.
IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL.
" I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought.
And rolls through all things.'*
Wordsworth.
To have travelled among such varied descriptions of country
as have been portrayed in this narrative — through desert,
forest, mountain, plain — and to have been brought in contact
with so many types of the human race, from the highly cultured
Hindoo to the rough tribesman of the Himalayas, without
forming some general impressions, would be impossible. When
a European travels among uncivilized, ignorant people, he is
constantly being asked questions about the natural phenomena
around him. He is thus made to realize how advanced our
knowledge of these phenomena is in comparison with that
possessed by semi-barbarians ; and in his solitary joumeyings
he is incited to inquire into the meanings of what he sees, and,
looking backward from the starting-point of our knowledge, as
marked in the untutored people around him, and so thinking
of the store that has been acquired, his fancy inevitably wanders
into the fields of discovery to come.
Digitized by
Google
388 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
No one, indeed, who has been alone with Nature in her
purest aspects, and seen her in so many different forms, can
help pondering over her meanings ; and though, in the strain
and stress of travel, her deepest messages may not have reached
my ear, now, in the after-calm, when I have all the varied
scenes as vividly before me as on the day I saw them, and
have, moreover, leisure to appreciate them and feel their fullest
influence, I can realize something of her grandeur, the mighty
scale on which she works, and the infinite beauty of all she
does. These impressions, as I stand now at the close of my
narrative, with the many scenes which the writing of it has
brought back to my mind full before my eyes, crowd upon
me, and I long to be able to record them as clearly as I feel
them, for the benefit of those who have not had the leisure
or the opportunity to visit the jealously guarded regions of
the earth where Nature reveals herself most clearly.
Upon no occasion were the wonders of the universe more
impressively brought before my mind than in the long, lonely
marches in the Gobi Desert For seventy days I was travelling
across the desert, and, knowing that the marches would be
made mostly by night, I had brought with me one of those
popular books on astronomy which put so clearly before the
reader the main principles of the working of the stellar universe.
I used to read it by day, and in the long hours of the night
march ponder over the meaning of what I had read. There, far
away in the desert, there was little to disturb the outward flow
of feeling towards Nature. There, before me, was nothing but
Nature. The boundless plain beneath, and the starry skies
above. And skies, too, such as are not to be seen in the
murky atmospheres of the less pure regions of the earth, but
clear and bright as they can only be in the far, original depths
of Nature. In those pure skies the stars shone out in unrivalled
brilliancy, and hour after hour, through the long nights, I
would watch them in their courses over the heavens, and think
Digitized by
Google
o
o
M
X
H
H
X
o
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] MANIFESTATIONS OF NATURE. 389
on what they are and what they represent, and try to realize
the place which we men hold in the universe stretched out
before me.
In the busy world of civilization the truths of science
seem to leave little impression. We have so much else to
think of, so much beside to occupy our attention, that they
excite only a momentary feeling of wonder, and we are inclined
to think that, after all, it is a matter of small consequence
what lies beyond our little world. But when we have been
for months cut off from civilization, when there are none of
the distractions of daily life to arrest our attention, then, in
the midst of the desert, or deep in the heart of the mountains,
these truths approach realities. Then it is that we think
over the facts which the science of astronomy presents. The
distance of the stars, so great in certain cases that the light
from them, travelling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-
six thousand miles in every second, must have started before
the birth of Christ to reach the earth in our day ; and their
numbers, which are reckoned not by thousands, but by hundreds
of millions, will furnish instances of the truths to which I allude.
Such, we are told, are the distances and number of the stars ;
and their size, and the speed at which they are travelling, are
equally marvellous. But what is beyond them } Say we could
travel to the very furthest star that is to be seen from the earth,
what is beyond that } Is that star the limit of everything ? is
there yet another hundred million stars beyond } Then, again,
when we learn that all this world, and the sun and the stars,
came from a vast expanse of nebulous gas, where did that gas
come from ? And what will happen to all these myriads of
worlds } It is said that the earth will become cold, barren,
and lifeless as the moon, and then be drawn into the sun, which
itself will have expended the last ray of heat it has been giving
out for millions of years, and will go whirling through space,
a cold, dead, lifeless star. Is every star to bum itself out like
Digitized by
Google
390
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap.
this, till the whole universe is a whirling vortex of dead worlds ?
or are life and heat to come to them again by impact with one
another, or in some yet unknown manner ?
Then, in the present, what is happening in these worlds
around us ? When I visited the secluded little state of Hunza,
whose inhabitants were shut out by the mountains from contact
with outside peoples and countries, I found they thought that
the world only consisted of a few neighbouring valleys, and that
no higher race than themselves existed. They could form no
conception of such vast plains of cultivated land as are seen in
India ; they could imagine nothing like the ocean ; a railway
and a telegraph would have seemed supernatural to them, and
men who could invent and work such things, as of an altogether
superior order to themselves. We men on this earth are in
as remote a corner of the universe as Hunza is in this world ;
and, among the millions of worlds around us, there must be
living beings of some sort, and, among them all, may there not,
perhaps, be some who are superior to ourselves ? Man is the
highest form of living being in this single little world of ours —
this little speck, which is to the universe as the smallest grain
of sand to the stretch of the seashore. But is he the highest
in the whole universe? Are not the probabilities over-
whelmingly in favour of his not being so? Would it not be
the veriest chance, if, among all these millions of worlds, this
one on which we live should have happened to develop the
highest being ? Thinking on all this, one cannot help believing
that, in some few at least of those myriads of worlds, there may
be more perfect beings than ourselves. There, there may be
beings with the senses more highly developed, who could see,
for instance, with the power of our telescopes and microscopes ;
beings, again, who had still other senses than we possess, who
might have the power after which we seem to be dimly groping,
of reading the thoughts of others, and directly communi-
cating with others at a distance. Or, again, beings whose lives.
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] CONJECTURES OF OTHER WORLDS. 391
reckoned by centuries instead of single years, could accumulate
experience and knowledge such as we never can in our fleeting
threescore years and ten. May we not, too, imagine in these
stellar worlds, beings who would no more allow themselves to
be bound down to their island worlds by mere space than we
permitted ourselves to be confined to land by the ocean ;
beings, who, as Columbus crossed the ocean to discover a new
world beyond his own, would set out through the depths of
space to communicate with other worlds around them ? And,
lastly, amid all these millions of worlds, may we not conceive of
societies as superior to our own as ours is to the savage tribes
about us — societies where culture of the mind, where sympathy
and love, and all that is noblest in man's moral nature, have
attained their highest development, and are given fullest play ?
In many such ways as these, may we not imagine beings
more perfect than ourselves to exist in the realms of light
above ? And, fanciful as these conjectures may seem, they are
in no way beyond the bounds of possibility, and indulgence
in such fancies is of deep practical use in making us realize
more clearly what our true position in the vast universe
really is. The simple nomads, whom from time to time I
used to meet in the desert, looking up into the heavens with
a keenness of sight such as is only granted to these dwellers
in the wilderness, saw only a number of bright specks, which
one by one disappeared below the horizon, and reappeared
in apparently the same places on the following evening.
Towards morning they would see a round of light appear,
which would slowly pass across the sky and disappear, like
the stars, below the western horizon. Day after day, night
after night, the same process would be repeated, the stars by
night and the sun by day, coursing over the heavens.
And what did these children of the desert think of these
phenomena? Simply this, that what they seemed to see was
really what they saw — that the small ball of fire by day
Digitized by
Google
392 THE HEART QF A CONTINENT, [chap.
and these little specks of light by night, went round and
round this great flat plain which constituted their world,
appearing above it in the east, ascending high overhead, and
then sinking beneath it once more in the west They knew
not that that ball of fire was made of the same materials as
their desert tracts, or that, indeed, those very tracts were part
of that ball of fire. They had no conception that this sun
was a million times as far from them as the most distant
hill they could see — a million times as far away as the longest
day's march they had ever made. They had never supposed
that that seemingly small ball of fire was millions of times
as g^eat as the round of their horizon, vast as that desert
horizon appears. And in their highest flights of imagination
they had never thought those little specks of light were
greater worlds still— greater and infinitely more distant; or
that, besides those few thousands which they could see with
their eyes, there were millions and millions beyond.
And if we know so much more than these primitive peoples,
it is simply because those who have gone before have thought,
and reasoned, and given play to their imagination, and have
recorded their thoughts to help on those who will follow after.
It is not so many centuries ago that the most learned men
in Europe would have told us that we could never hope to
know what the sun was made of, still less what were the
materials of the stars. And yet, little by little, these and other
secrets have been forced out of Nature. Men have watched her,
studied her every movement, marked each down, and thought
over it, till Nature could no longer conceal what had been
hidden in her breast during all the long ages of the past, and
so it is we now know what we do know. So it is that the
cultured European is able to realize so much better than
these simple nomads what our true position in the universe
is ; and, realizing this, to have higher and more enlarged ideas
of the character of its Creator and Ruler.
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] MOUNTAINS. 393
In the long night marches in the desert, my thoughts turned
chiefly on the relations of this world with the worlds of space.
Of the magnitude of this our own world, my best idea was
formed from observation of high mountains. In the pages
of this book I have described many a scene among the
Himalayas where I stood spell-bound at the height and
grandetir of the mountains. I see before me now the Tian-shan
— the " Heavenly Mountains " — as I saw them from the Gobi
Desert, their white summits forming part of heaven itself,
and their base rooted in the broad bosom of the desert. I
recall to my mind the sight of the Pamir Mountains, the outer
wall of the "Roof of the World," viewed from the plains of
Turkestan, and rising from them like one vast rampart. I
think of the Mustagh — the " Ice Mountains " — rising tier upon
tier before me, and the great peak K.2, the second highest
mountain in the world, soaring above all the rest. I remember
the Nanga Parbat — the "Naked Mountain'* — seen across the
lovely vale of Kashmir, or, again, from the banks of the river
Indus, above which it rises for twenty-three thousand feet
in one continuous slope. All these scenes I recall, and many
others with them — the Rakapushi Peak in Hunza, and the
Tirich Mir in Chitral, each of them twenty-five thousand feet
above sea-level; and I think of the first sight I ever had
of high snow-mountains, when from the Juras I looked across
to the Mont Blanc range, and could not at first believe that
the snowy summits were not clouds, so high above this earth
did they appear. Mont Blanc was but a little mountain in
comparison with the giants I afterwards saw in the Himalayas,
and yet even these, we find, are mere roughnesses on the
surface in comparison with the whole volume of the earth.
Of such enormous size is this world — this world, which in
proportion to the sun is as a pin's head beside an orange,
and, in relation to the starry universe, but as a drop of water
in comparison with the Atlantic ocean — that mountain heights
Digitized by
Google
394 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
which appal men by their magnitude are to it but as the
roughnesses on the peel of an orange to the whole fruit No
wonder, then, that these minute excrescences, which we call
mighty mountains, are soon washed down. To us they seem
so immense as to be absolutely immovable and unchangeable.
In comparison with the whole mass of the world they are
nothing, and in a bird's-eye view of the entire earth they
would be scarcely perceptible. Here, then, we have a scale
upon which to base our views of the universe, and again we
are reminded of its inconceivable proportions.
And from those cold mountain solitudes, from the lonely
desert tracts, the thoughts are brought back to scenes of
busy life — the crowded haunts of men, the teeming swarms
of animal life, and the varied types of the vegetable kingdom ;
and I think of the forests in Manchuria, with all their numerous
life crowded into the brief summer season — the huge oak
trees, the tall elms ; the birches, firs, and pines ; and all the
wealth of flowery beauty, the lilies, irises, and columbines, in
sheets of colour : of the river-banks and waters of the lakes,
teeming with animal life of every kind — the thousands of
duck and geese and snipe, and every form of waterfowl in
countless numbers; the swarms of insect life; the great
droves of ponies on the steppes ; and the herds of graceful
antelopes: — I think of these, and of all the varied races of
mankind with whom I have been brought in contact — the
cold, unattractive, but intelligent and thrifty Chinamen; the
dreamy, listless nomads of Mongolia; the lethargic men of
Turkestan ; the rough, hardy races of the Himalayas ; the
impressionable Chitralis; the trusty Sikhs; and the jovial
little Gurkhas: — and there comes the remembrance of the
latest scientific truth, that all this varied life, from the lowliest
plant, from the minutest insect, to the sharp-witted Chinamen,
and to the highest civilized races, are all but branches from
the same original forms of life. While the mountains have
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] HUMAN EVOLUTION. 395
been slowly raised from their birthplace in the ocean-beds,
then washed down again and others raised in their place,
during all these millions of years, animal and vegetable has
been developing, first, like the mountains, beneath the waters
of the sea, and afterwards in the continental tracts of
land.
And with the idea of evolution thoroughly engrafted into
the mind, as it must be on reading any of the books of
science which a traveller naturally takes up, the observer of
varied races of mankind finds himself considering how these
races are developing, to what goal they are progressing, and
upon what lines their evolution is taking place. And especially
interesting is the question raised by the study of these various
stages of human evolution ; whether the race is developing
intellectually, or whether its development, not being towards
an increased intellectual capacity in the individual, is rather
in the direction of a higher moral nature. And in this matter
my observations seem to corroborate the views put forward
by Mr. Benjamin Kidd, that the development now is not
primarily intellectual, but rather moral and religious ; that
since man has become a social creature, the development of
his intellectual character has become subordinate to the
development of his religious character.
It is the privilege of a traveller to have opportunities of
mixing, on and after his journey, with persons in every
grade of the social scale, and of every degree of intellectual
capacity. During his travels he frequently associates with
men who are little better than beasts of burden, and on his
return he meets with statesmen, men of science, and men of
letters of the first rank in the most civilized countries of the
world. He sees every step of the ladder of human progress.
And, so far as I have been able to make use of my opportunities
of observation, I have not been impressed with any great
mental superiority of the most highly developed races of
Digitized by
Google
396 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
Europe over lower races with whom I have been brought in
contact. In mere brain-power and intellectual capacity there
seems no great difference between the civilized European and,
say, the rough hill-tribesman of the Himalayas ; and, in regard
to the Chinaman, I should even say that the advantage lay
on his side. In the rude hill states of Hunza and Chitral,
among men whose natural endowments I have had some
means of judging, for I have been in contact with them for
months, and engaged with them in the transaction of business
where their intellectual capacity might well be observed, I
have remarked that the average ability is certainly not
inferior to the average of a European people. One meets
there with shrewd, sharp, intelligent men who, with regard
to any of their own concerns, or any subject with which they
have some acquaintance, can grasp points quickly, and give
their answers directly and comprehensively ; men with excellent
memories, and with a power of speech, and, amongst themselves,
a quickness of repartee, certainly not inferior to that of a
European. Amongst the races of India, and with the Chinese,
this is still more noticeable. The European may feel his tnaral
superiority over them, but in sharpness of intellect there seems
little to choose between the two. The brain capacities of
these less-civilized races is no smaller, and their mental abilities
are no less.
On the other hand, no European can mix with non-Christian
races without feeling his moral superiority over them. He
feels, from the first contact with them, that, whatever may be
their relative positions from an intellectual point of view, he is
stronger morally than they are. And facts show that this
feeling is a true one. It is not because we are any cleverer
than the natives of India, because we have more brains or
bigger heads than they have, that we rule India ; but because
we are stronger morally than they are. Our superiority over
them is not due to mere sharpness of intellect, but to that
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] MORAL SUPERIORITY. 397
higher moral nature to which we have attained in the develop-
ment of the human race.
What, for instance, was the power by which six British
officers shut up in Chitral fort, hundreds of miles from the
nearest British soldier, and with only native troops to rely on,
were able to evoke such attachment from these men of the
very same races who had, forty or fifty years before, fought
desperately against the British, that those men stood by them
for seven long weeks, against thousands of the enemy, till
succour came? And how was it that the few British officers
under Colonel Kelly were able, without the assistance o( a
single British soldier, and with none but these same men of
India who had formerly opposed us so resolutely, to afford
that timely succour to the Chitral garrison? Englishmen at
home must often have wondered how this is done, and those
who have been in the position of having to rely upon this
power, whatever it is, have equally wondered what it can be.
It cannot be solely because he is more brave than the
men he controls that the Englishman is able to carry on this
work, for there are races in India scarcely less brave than the
English. Few races on the earth can excel in bravery the
Sikhs and the Gurkhas, and no amount of bravery alone
would have preserved the British officers in the Chitral fort.
Nor can it be because the Englishman is able to pay the
men to do as he wishes ; for he does not pay them ; they pay
themselves. He does not take a single shilling from England
to pay the natives of India to fight for him ; he, in fact, makes
the natives of India pay him. Every English officer and
'soldier receives his pay from revenue drawn from the natives
of India; so the Englishman does not pay the natives to
fight for him, but they actually pay him to control them!
There must, therefore, be some other means by which we in
India are able to hold so great an empire by such apparently
inadequate methods, and to my mind it seems that the chief,
Digitized by
Google
398 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [chap.
if it cannot be considered the only, power by which we do so,
is the power of sympathy.
Let a stranger go anywhere outside the barracks of the
seventy thousand British troops in India, and watch those
Englishmen who are employed in direct dealings with the
natives of India. Let him go to a native regiment, or to a
civil district, or to a political agency in a native state, and
watch the officer who is engaged on behalf of Government
in dealing with the crowd of natives around him. If the
stranger looks sufficiently carefully, he will see that, in spite
of the Englishman's cold, " stand-offish " exterior, he has the
interests of the natives under his charge very deeply at heart
He may not ** fraternize " with the natives, and as likely as not
he will tell the stranger that a native of India can never be
trusted; but, in spite of that, he will trust those particular
natives who are under himself, and will look very sharply
after their interests. If they are attacked in any way, or
any semblance of an injustice is attempted on them, he will
stand up for them, often against his own Government; and
many cases might be mentioned where he has even laid down
his life in proof of his trust in them.
This regard for the interests of those whom he governs is
one of the most characteristic features of the Englishman's rule
in India. Wherever an Englishman is left long enough in the
same position, it will nearly always be found that his sympathies
go out to those under him, often to the extent of opposing his
superiors. And we have recently seen an ex- Viceroy and a
Secretary of State for India declaring, the one in the House
of Lords and the other in the House of Commons, that even
before our own interests the interests of those we govern must
first be looked to. And that this same principle of showing
sympathy to those we govern is not merely enunciated as an
empty platitude by statesmen living here in England, but that
it is actually carried into practice, every one must acknowledge
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] POWER OF SYMPATHY. 399
who thinks of those men in the stirring days of the Mutiny,
who showed to what extent they really beh'eved in the native
soldiers under them, by going amongst them while other
regiments all round were in a state of mutiny, telling those
who maligned their men that they would not believe a word
that was said against them, and then going down to their men's
lines, and, by their very display of trust and confidence, keeping
their men in subordination. Death overtook these officers only
too frequently. But that the principle on which they acted
was a true one is shown by the multitude of cases in which it
was successful, and by the fact that, in spite of experiences where
officers have suffered for their confidence, we still find it
successful, and at Chitral, in 1895, we have had, perhaps, the
most remarkable instance on record of its inherent truth and
soundness.
This, then, is the chief power by which we hold India, this
power of sympathy, this deep-rooted tendency in us to watch
over the interests of those whom we control. It is by using
this to supplement mere physical courage that we are able
to control the millions of India. We do still require physical
force in addition, but the power of sympathy must always be
the paramount influence ; no weak sentimentality, but sym-
pathy and moral courage, such as *' our simple great ones gone "
have practically shown in days gone by. It is because we
have this as our ideal, and because in the history of India
we have selected for dealing directly with the natives, not
merely clever men any more than physically strong men, but
good men, such as the Lawrences, Nicholson, and Edwardes
with unflinching moral purpose and capacity for sympathy,
that we have gained the position we hold.
It is a well-recognized fact, too, amongst those Englishmen
who have had dealings with Asiatics, that if once the European
give up his higher moral standard, and descends to intriguing
with Asiatics, and engaging with them in cunning intellectual
Digitized by
Google
400 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap.
fencing, the chances are very much in favour of his being
worsted. It is not so in every case, for there are, of course,
Europeans just as nimble-minded and subtle as Asiatics ; but,
in the overwhelming majority of cases, the sharp-witted Asiatic
wins. On the other hand, where real influence has been gained
by the European over Asiatics, it has been due to his straight-
ness and strength of moral character, and not to any original
intellectual superiority. The European shows his greater moral
strength by his tenacity of purpose, his persistence in the object
he has before him, his disregard of selfish interests in the
advancement of that object, and his sympathy with those about
him. These characteristics of a higher moral development
enable him to win the day in his competition with men of
natural capacity equal to his own, who fail in the struggle
because they have not the same "grit" or resolution, and, above
all, because they do not practise that abnegation of self in the
interest of others, and that sympathy with those about them
which have been inculcated into the European races by the
teaching of the Christian religion. Europeans are anything
but perfect in the practice of these principles, but when we
hear of a wounded British officer * dismounting from his pony
and insisting upon his wounded comrade, a native soldier,
mounting it in his stead and riding back to safety, while he
walked, although the enemy were firing from all sides, then
we know that such principles are sometimes applied, and it
is because they are more frequently and more thoroughly
applied by the Christian than by the non-Christian races of
the world that the former have been able to establish their
superiority over the latter.
If this conclusion, based upon experiences with men of
many different races, is right, it furnishes a strong argument
in support of the opinion that the development of the human
race is now, not towards bigger heads, with cold, subtle brains,
* Lieutenant Fowler, R.E., at Resbon, in Chitral.
Digitized by
Google
XIX.] CONCLUSION, 401
but towards larger hearts, with warmer, fuller blood flowing
through them. The development now is of man as a social
being, and in the keen struggle of societies for existence, that
society will win whose members are able to subordinate most
thoroughly their own individual interests to the well-being of
the whole society to which they belong. Nowhere has this
principle been more deeply impressed than on the society
formed by the Christian religion, and may we not then con-
clude that, if that society now finds itself foremost in all the
societies of the world, it is so because of the inherent superiority
of the principles which it professes ?
These are the thoughts that fill me as 1 bring together in
one focus the various impressions of Nature and of Man that
have, during ten years' wanderings, formed themselves upon
my mind. And here I will close this narrative, these last words
of which I am writing on the Atlantic Ocean, far away from the
scenes I have depicted, as I approach the shores of Africa,
the field, maybe, of yet further explorations to come. Hard-
ships I necessarily had in the course of those travels, and, to
a certain degree, danger also, but never once now do I regret
leaving those comforts of my native land, now more appreciated
than ever, to wander amid the real haunts of Nature. For-
gotten now are all the trials ; dimmer and dimmer do they
become as they recede into the background. But the keen
pleasure of travel remains, and the impressions of Nature live
and grow for ever. Nature, when once she has revealed herself,
impresses herself more deeply on us with each succeeding
year.
** *Tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy : for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
2 D
Digitized by
Google
402 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT [chap. xix.
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men.
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life.
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings."
Digitized by
Google
INDEX.
Abbottabad, 216
Adamzadas of Chitral, 365
Afdigar, 262
Afzul-ul-Mulk, ruler of Chitral, 349
Aghil Pass, 185, 237
Range, 233, 237
Akal Jan, a Kirghiz, 267
Ak-baital River, 301
Ak-berdi Pass, 302
Ak-chak, 159
Ak-chak-tash hot springs, 297
Aksakals, 164
Aksu, 154
River, 300
Aktagh Range, 232
Aktash, 278, 297
Alichur Pamir, 298 ; principal routes, 299
River, 299
Allen, Mr., British Consul at New-
chwang, 7, 48
Altai Mountains, 100, 107
Aman-ul-Mulk, chief of Chitral, 349
Amur River, 14
Andijani merchants, 136 ; silk, 137
Aral, 156
Arbapy or governor, of Hunza, 281
Artysh, 163
Ashkuman River, 329, 337
Asia, Central, characteristics of the
traders of, 309 ; their opinion of the
respective merits of the British and
Russian rule, 310 ; comparative
strength of the two powers, 310
Askoli village, 170, 204
Avalanches, danger from, 242
Aylmer, 346
B
Bai, 154
Baijih Pass, 278
Baikra Pass, 329
Baltis, the, 207
Baltistan, 207
Baltit, 288, 347
Baltoro Glacier, 202
Barkul, 117
Baroghil Pass, 329
Baroso-khai'Peak, 95, 100
Barratt, Captain, 338
Bash Gumbaz, 298, 300
Bautu, caravan from, 89, 93
Bazar Darra River, 234
valley, 181
Beech, Mr., 292, 316
Bell, Colonel, 58, 123, 213 ; his letter
from the Karakoram Pass, 172
Bellew, Dr., 179
Benderski, 328
Blanc, M. £., 314
Bortson well, 92
Bower, Captain, 214, 226
, Lieutenant, 267, 273
Bozai-Gumbaz, 326, 329, 335
Bradshaw, Captain, 347
Braldo River, 207
Brenan, Mr. Byron, Consul at Tientsin,
55
Brigands, resort of, loi
Bruce, Lieutenant, 351, 354, 357
Bulun-kul Lake, 325
Burzil Pass, 289, 338
Bu-yur, 149
Buzilla Jai, 299
Digitized by
Google
404
INDEX,
Cairns, 102
Card, M., 26 .
Carey, Mr., 4, 173
Chadir Tash, 297
Chang-pai-shan, or '* Ever- White Moun-
tain,** 5, 15
Chang-san, the interpreter, 78
Chapman, General, Quarter-Master
General in India, 211
Cbarch, 149
Ch6-ku-lu-chuen, 129
China, the Great Wall of, 51, 62 ; intro-
duction of railways into, 54; the
missionary question, 377-386
Chinese temples, 9 ; industry of colonists,
II, 18, 50; cooking, 19; character-
istics, 20 ; carts and mules, 30 ; mode
of levying troops, 71 ; intricacies of
the language, 115; officials in Kash-
gar, 306
Ching-cheng, 121
Ching-shiu-kou, 143
Chiraghsaldi Pass, 179, 234
Chirag-tash, or Lamp Rock, 301
Chitral, 329, 349, 353 ; population, 349 ;
claimants for the throne, 349; the
Mchtar of, 352, 357 ; system of
government, 362-368 ; durbars, 363 ;
the Adamzadas, 365 ; councils of state,
367 ; rapidity of the administration, 369
Chitralis, 352, 358, 370, 372-376
Chongjangal, 255, 258
Christie, Dr., 46
Chukshu, 235
Clarke, Mr. and Mrs. G, W., 70
Cockerill, Lieutenant, 265
Collins, Messrs. G. W., & Co., of
Tientsin, 81
Conrad, Herr, 268
Conraux, P^re, French missionary, 25
Conway, Sir William, 203, 354
Corea, 11
Cossacks, appearance, 34, 35 ; pay, 35,
269
Crevasse Glacier, 251
Cumberland, Major, 226, 267, 273
Curzon, Mr. G., 376
D
Dalgleish, Mr., 1O4, 172; murdered,
173 ; character, 173 ; memorial tablet,
226
Darkot Pass, 329
Darwaza, a Kanjuti outpost, 259
Dauvergne, M., 209, 226, 273
Davison, Lieutenant, 317, 325, 332 ;
his attempt to cross the Mustagh Pass,
317-320; death, 340
Deer (huang-yang), herds of, 83
Depsang Plains, 225
Dharmsala, i
Diament, Miss, 63
Doolans, 150
Dorah Pass, 349
Drogpa, 177, 198
Dufierin, Lord, 59
, Mount, 325
Dunmore, Lord, 297, 299
Durand, Sir Mortimer, 214, 216
, Colonel, 228, 260, 288, 338, 341,
346, 348
Dust-storm, 96
Edgar, Mr., commissioner of China
customs, 48
Elias, Mr. Ney, 60 noU^ 75, 214, 291,
293, 325
£urh-pu village, 126
Ever- White Mountain, The, 5, 15; its
height, 15 ; meadows, 16 ; lake, 16
** Feng-shui," superstition of, 54
Forsyth, Sir Douglas, 152
Mission, 156, 174, 274
Fowler, Lieutenant, 400
Fulford, Mr. H., 5, 42, 49
Gad-flies, 13
Galpin Gobi, 89, 92
Gez River, 302, 324
Ghazan Khan, 283
Ghiza, 351
Giles, Dr., 358
Gilgit, 288, 338. 350
Digitized by
Google
INDEX,
405
Ginseng plant seekers, 14
Gircha, 282
Glaciers, 191, 202, 205, 238, 241, 243,
246, 251, 283, 334, 336
Gobi Desert, 60 ; preparations for cross-
ing the, 74-77 ; monotony of the
marches, 86 ; ' dryness of the atmo-
sphere, 87 ; temperature, 88 ; winds, 88
Hills, 112
Godwin-Austen, Colonel, 194
Gordon, Colonel, 274, 291
, Lieutenant, 348, 351, 357
Gourbaun-Seikyn Mountains, 100
Grenard, M., 314
Grombtchevsky, Captain, 267, 268, 292 ;
on the Russian army, 270
Guchen, 74
Gulmit, 283
Gurkhas, escort of, 216, 289; average
height, 271
Gusherbrum Mountain, 238
H
Hajji, the Arab, 137
Hami, 60, 74, 123
Hayward, i, 174, 180, 232
"Heavenly Mountains,** 113, 115
Hedin, Dr. Sven, 314
Hendriks, P^re, the Dutch missionary,
166, 315
Hillier, Mr. Walter, 56, 65
Himalayas, first tour through the, 2
Hmdu Kush, 327, 329, 335
Ho-lai-liu stream, 85
Howorth, Sir Henry, 125, 295
Ho-ya-shan hill, 1 1 1
Hsiao Pachia-tzu, Roman Catholic mis-
sion, at 43
Hsi-yang-ch€, 130
Hulan, 25
Humayun, 282
Hunchun, 32
Hun-kua-ling sandhills, 97
Hunza, raiders of, 215 ; campaign against,
341 ; under British rule, 342 ; internal
and foreign affdrs, 343 ; rdations with
the Government, 344
Hurka River, 29
Hurku Hills, 91, 100
Huru-su-tai, 95
I, General, 33
Ice-boat sailing, 55
Ilisu, 268, 272
In-shan Range, 297
IvanofF, M., 63
I-wang-chuen, 128
J
James, Mr. H. E. M., 3, 42, 49 ; "The
Long White Mountain,** 5, 49
Jehol-Lamamian, 106
Jemadar Rab Nawaz Khan, 357
Jhelum valley, 217
Juma Bai, 279
K.2 peak, 186, 203, 238, 245
Kabul, Abdul Rahman, the Amir of, 309
Kaiping, 52 ; coal-mine, 53
Kalgan, 62 ; missionary station at, 63
Kalmaks, encampments of, 144
Kamesha hamlet, 142
Kangra valley, 2
Kanjut, 215
Kanjuti robbers, 179
Kanjuti*s account of the raid on the Kir-
ghiz, 227; outpost, 259; interview
with, 260; appearance, 262; terror of
their chief, 263
Kara-art Pass, 303
Karachukur stream, 275, 277
Kara-kara Pass, 159
Karakash River, 236
Karakoram Mountains, 185, 292
Pass, 22$
Karakul Lake, the Great, 303 ; the Little,
325
Karashar, 143
Karash-tarim plain, 180, 234
Karasu stream, 300
Kargalik, 178
Kami, 236
Karumbar River, 329, 337
Kashgar, 164, 304 ; Chinese officials, the
civil governor, 306 ; the general, 307 ;
barracks, 308
Kashmir valley, 211, 289, 339
Digitized by
Google
4o6
INDEX,
Kashmir, state of the army in 1889. .221
Kaufmann Peak, 303
Kelly, Colonel, 344
Khaian-aksai, 268
Khal Choskun, 232
Khardong Pass, 224
Khargosh Pass, 300
Khoja Mohammed gorge, 181, 236
Kholga, 147
Khora Bhort pass, 329
Khonjerab Pass, 275
Kidd, Mr. Benjamin, 395
Kieulung, Emperor, his poem on the
Ever- White Mountain, 6
Kilik Pass, 332
Kinder, Mr., 53 ; introduces railways into
China, 53
Kirghiz encampments, 157, 160; apply
for protection against the Hunza raiders,
215 ; account of the raid, 227
Kirghiz Jangral, 233
Kirin, 18, 42 ; arsenal, 19
Kitai, the, 144
Kizil, 153
Kizil Jek Pass, 303
Kobdo, 75
Kokalang Pass, 235
Kokbai Pass, 300
Korlia, 148
Kotwal, the Turk, 152
Kuan-cheng-tzu, 43
Kuch Mohammed Bey, headman of the
Pamir, 272, 275, 278
Kuch^ oasis, 150 ; town, 152
Kuenlun Mountains, 179, 233, 235
Kugiar village, 178
Kukturuk valley, 332
Kulanargu River, 235
Kulanuldi, 233
Kulu valley, 2
Kurbu Pass, 272
Kwei-hwa-cheng, 62, 73 ; China inland
mission at, 70
Ladak, 219
, the kyang of, 106
Ladakis, 177
Lain-tung, 128
Langar, 351
Laspur, 351
Leh, 219
to Hunza, question of transport,
222 ; supplies, 223
Lennard, Mr., 292, 316
Liang-ko-ba, 107
Liang -lang-shan or Eurh-lang-shaa
Mountains, 84
Liang-ming-chsmg, 132
Litot, Pi^re, 43
Little Pamir, 294
Liu-san, Chinese servant, 62, 213 ; his
propensity for fibbing, 82, 83
Lob Nor, 294
Lockhart, Sir William, 3
Loess formation, 66
" Long White Mountain," by Mr. James,
5.49
Lutsch, M., 166, 305, 321
M
Macartney, Mr. George, 291, 317, 322
Macgregor, Sir Charles, Quartermaster-
General in India, 4
Man-chin-tol, [03
Manchuria, 5 ; climate, 49 ; mineral pro-
ducts, 50 ; p pulation, 50
Manners-Smith, Lieutenant, 288, 346
Mao-erh-shan, 12
Maralbashi, 316
Marjunai Pass, 299 .
Markan-su, 304
Masher-Brum Peak, 202
Mastuj fort, 351, 376
Ma-te-la, the Mongol assistant, 79 ; his
work, 80 ; home, no ; wages, no
Maviel, P^re, 43
Meadows, Mr. Taylor, 50
Mecca, pilgrimages to, 323
Mehtar of Chitral, 357
Midges, scourge of, 13
Mintaka Aksai, 277
Pass, 277, 280
Misgah village, 281
Mission stations at Hsiao-Pa-chia-tzu,
43; Kalgan, 63; Kwei-hwacheng,
70 ; Mukden, 46 ; Payen-su-su, 26
Missionary question in China, 377-3^6
Mist, a frozen, 4$
Mohammed Nazim Khan, 282, 288, 345,
347
Moli-ho stream, 84
Digitized by
Google
INDEX.
407
Mongul yurts or felt tents, 68 ; hunters,
83 ; temples, 83 ; encampments, 95
Mongolia, Plain of, 67 ; pasture lands, 81 ;
camel wool, 82
, steppes of, 23
Mongolian ponies and mules, 44
Morgai, a Turki house, 117
Mosquitoes, scourge of, 13, 23
Mukden, 7, 46 ; temples of, 9 ; Scottish
mission at, 46
Murdock, Miss, 63
Murghabi, 300
Murkush, 280
Murree, 212, 217
Musa, the Kirghiz, 221
Mustagh-ata, the Father of Mountains,
302, 304, 324
Mustagh Pass, 188; description of the
crossing, 188-200 ; the Old, 194 ; the
New, 194, 205
Range, 185
N
Nagar valley, 347
Naked Mountain, 217
Nanga Parbat Mountain, 217
Nankon gate, 62
Newchwang, 5, 48
Neza-tash Pass, 294, 300
Nilt, 288, 3+6
Ninguta, 31, 4^
Nisbet, Colonel Parry, 217, 258
Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Mehtar of Chitral,
349. 352, 360^ 370; murdered, 376
Nonni, 23
Notovitch, M. Nicolas, 210
Novo-kievsk, 38
Nubra valley, 225
Nurhachu, tomb of, 8
Oases, III, 132, 149, 150
Opal, 304
Oprang Pass, 276
River, 185. 186, 233, 237, 254, 266
Osh, 329
Ovis argali^ size of the horns, 112, 1 19
/tf/f horns, 114, 298
Oxus River, 294, 326, 334
Pakhpu race, 179
Pakhpulu, 234
Pamir Mountains, first sight of the, 163
Pamir-i-Wakhan, 326, 335
Pamirs, The, 291 ; the Little, 294 ; the
Great, 294 ; the Alichur, 298 ; forma-
tion, 295 ; meaning of the word, 296 ;
climate, 296 ; inhabitants, 297
Panja River, 335
valley, 329
Passes, 159, 179. 183, 188,194, 205,210,
218, 224, 225, 226, 227, 232, 235,
237, 241, 263, 272, 276, 277, 280,
289, 294, 299, 3CO, 303, 325, 326,
329, 332, 335, 338. 339. 351. 372
Pasu Glacier, 283
Pa-yen-su-su, mission station, 26
Peiho river, 55
Pei-lin-tzu, Roman Catholic mission at,
26
Peking, 56 ; British legation at, 57 ;
Gazette, despatches of the Chinese
commander in, 24
Pelrovsky, M., Russian Consul at Kash-
gar, 166, 30s, 3"» 320; his view of
the condition of England, 312 ; on the
treatment of natives, 312 ; opinion of
the Chinese, 313
Madame, 305
Petuna, 23
Pevstof, the Russian traveller, 100
Pi-chan, 131
Pieotsof, Colonel, 273
Pil, 235
Possiet Bay, 39
Prjevalsky, his description of the Mon-
golian camel, 82 noU ; the Galpin
Gobi, 92
Punmah glacier, 205
Pyramids, compared with Great Wall of
China, 52
K
Raguit, M., 26
Rahmat-ula-Khan, 15s, 161
Railway, the first Chinese, 53
Rakapushi Peak, 346
Ramsay, Captain, 211, 220
Ramzan, the interpreter, 260
Digitized by
Google
4o8
INDEX.
Rang-kul Lake, 301
Raskam, 181, 324
River, 266
Rawal Pindi, 212, 216
Religion, universality of, 383
Rhins, M. Dutreuil de, 314; murdered,
315
Riffard, M., 26
Roberts, General Sir Frederick, 165, 211
Robertson, Dr., 351, 357
Rockhill, Mr., 213
Rope bridge, crossing a, 206
Ross, Mr., 46
Sable-hunters* huts, 13
Safder Ali, the Hunza chief, 258, 283-
287 ; letter from, 265 ; campaign
against, 341
Saltoro Pass, unsuccessful attempt to
cross the, 241
Sandhills, 89, 97, 132 j formation, 99
Sang-ching-kou, 133
S*an-pu, 127
Sansing, 28 ; fort, 28
San-to-lin-tzu village, 128
Sardm village, 153
Sarez, 300
Sarhad, 329
Sarikolis, The, 274
Sarpo Laggo River, 186, 190
Saser Pass, 225
Schlagentweit, 174
Scottish mission at Mukden, 47
Shahidula, 223, 226, 232
Shahzad Mir, 218
Shakhdarra, 300
Shaksgam River, 185, 186
Shandur Pass, 351
Shan-hai-kuan, the Great Wall at, 51,
62 ; forts, 52
Shaw, Robert, i, 58, 156; Political
Agent to Yakoob Beg, 174
Sheitung-ula Mountains, 84
Sher-Afzul, 349
Shigar valley, 207
Shi-ga-tai, 131
Shignan, 299
Shimshal Pass, 227, 263
River, 255, 259
Shor-Bulak, 276
Sho-shok, 146
Shukar Ali, 203, 219
Simla, 213, 216
Sind valley, 211
Skardu district, 189, 209
Skinmang, 205
Sokh-bulak Pass, 232
Sokolowski, Colonel, Russian Com-
mandant at Swanka, 34; his hospi-
tality, 36 ; on the Russo-Turkish war,
37
Somatash, 298
Sontash, 159
Sprague, Mr., 63, 65
Srinagar, 211, 340
Stewart, Captain, 332, 336, 342
Su-chow, 103
Suget Jangal, 186, 246, 252
Suget Pass, 226
Sung, Mr., 19
Sungari River, 14, 23, 28; source of
the, 17
Surakwat River, 181, 236
Swanka, 34
Syrt country, 1 59
Tagarma plain, 325
Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, 267, 274, 294,
326
Takhta-kuran Pass, 235
Ta-pu*ma village, 126
Tash-kupruk Pass, 329
Tashkurgan, 273, 293, 325
Taylor, 346
Taylor, Mr. Hudson, 71
Tian-shan Mountains, 113
Tientsin, 55
Tirich Mir, 355
Tisnaf River, 235
village, 274
Toksun, 140
Tragbal Pass, 289, 339
Travel, impressions of, 387-402
Tsi-tsi-har, 24
Tuan*yen-kou, 130
Tumen River, 32
Tung River, 273
Tungani, 144
Tupa Da wan Pass, 179
Tu-pu-chi, a Mongol encampment, 97
Digitized by
Google
INDEX,
409-
Turdi Kol, 227, 259
Turfan, 135, 139
Turikho valley, 372
Turkestan, 1 16 ; appearance of the men,
117; the women, 118; the races of,
VI4; its physical features, 170; cha-
racter of the people, 171
Tyler, Captainr 329
Wazir Dadu, the "Prime Minister" c*
Hunza, 282
Webster, Mr. and Mrs., 46, 47
Wells, number of, 134
Williams, Mr., 63
Wu-hau-pu-la inn, 142
Wular Lake, 217
U
Ula-khutun, 11 1
Uliasutai, 75
Ulugh Rabat Pass, 325
Umk valley, 267
Urumchi, 130
Ush-ta-le, 142
Ush Turfan, 156
Victoria Lake, 297
W
Wakhan, 277
Wakhijrui Pass, 274, 326, 332
Wali, the guide, 177, 208
Wall, the Great, of China, 51, 62 ; com-
pared with the Pyramids, 52
Walsham, Sir John, 56, 59, 60
Wang, General, 308, 320
j Ya-hu oasis, 1 1 1
j Yakoob Beg, 151, 156, 171 ; his pillars^
I 153 ; canal, 163
Yalu River, 11
Yang-ho valley, 65
Yang-sar, 149
Yarkand, 168, 172, 176, 292; Chinese
governor of, 175
River. 180, 230, 233, 255
Yarkhun River, 329
Yasin valley, 174, 329, 350
Yerum-kou, 149
Yeshil-kul, 298
Yonoff, Colonel, 299, 327 ; his instruc-
tions from the Russian Government^
330
Yu-fu-kou, 142
Yurts or felt tents, 68
Zoji-Ia Pass, 210, 218
Zungari, desert of, 113
THE END.
LONDON : PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by
Google
Digitized by VjOOQIC
3 2044 106 209 208
Digitized by
Google
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11